FRIENDSHIP 

of 

ART 


^liss  Qarrnan 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 


GIFT  OF 
W.    C.  Tesche 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


Iitt|5://www.arcliive.org/details/friendsliipofart00carmiala 


Cije  StitrCbsfiip  of  art 


The  Works  of  ^ 

BLISS   CARMAN  m 

W  The  Kinship  of  Nature     .        .        •        .  $  1.50  M 

m  The  Friendship  of  Art       .        .        .        .  1.50  Qg 

W  The  Poetry  of  Life 1.50  ffl 

92  The  Making  of  Personality      .        .        .  J.50  y2 

ra  poetrp 

^  Ode  on  the  Coronation  of  King  Edward  »^^    I.OO 

ra  Sappho :  One  Hundred  Lyrics 

Ka       Limited  Edition  (500  copies)      .  .  net    6.00 

K4       Large  Paper  Edition  (200  copies)  .  nei  10.00  B 

hj      Autograph  Edition  (50  copies)  .  .  net  15.00  hj 

M  PIPES  OF  PAN  SERIES  asfoUows:  f.d 

2  L  From  the  Book  of  Myths  .  .  net  J.OO  ^ 
«  2.  From  the  Green  Book  of  the  Bards  net  LOO  « 
Q  3.  Songs  of  the  Sea  Children  .  .  net  LOO  ® 
®  4.  Songs  from  a  Northern  Garden  ♦  «^^  LOO 
89  5.  From  the  Book  of  Valentines  .  net  LOO 
The  above  series  is  also  published  complete 
in  one  volume  as  follows  : 

PIPES  OF  PAN»  Definitive  Edition  .     net    2.00 

KS  Poems :  A  sumptuous  collected  edition  of  all 

gS  of  the  author's  verse  complete  with  the  excep- 

pN  tion  of  Sappho.  Limited  to  300  copies.  Two 

Cr  volumes,  small  folio,  printed  throughout  in 

rK  red  and  black  on  hand-made  paper    .     net  15.00 

lb  The  same,  three-quarters  crushed  levant 

K  net  20.00  „ 

K  The  same,  full  crushed  levant  .         .     net  30.00  K^ 

ro  L.  C.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

^  New  England  Building,  Boston,  Mass. 


i 


Copyright,  igoj 
By  L.  C.  Page  &  Company 

(incorporated) 

Copyright,  igo4 
By  L.  C.  Page  &  Company 

(incorporated) 
All  rights  reserved 


Published  August,  1904 


Third   Impression,  July,    1908 


COLONIAL    PRESS 

EUctrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H .  Simonds  &•  Co. 

Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


To  '' Moonshine 


99 


There  is  a  delightful  Oriental  superstition, 
my  dear  "  Moonshine,"  which  declares  that 
on  the  last  day  every  artist  will  be  called  upon 
to  endow  each  of  his  creations  with  a  soul. 
I  should  be  the  last  one  to  feel  perfect  confi- 
dence in  denying  the  possibility  of  such  a 
fancy,  or  in  affirming  that  only  living  beings 
can  have  real  personality.  I  prefer  to  be- 
lieve with  the  Greeks  that  every  stream  and 
tree  has  its  own  indwelling  divinity,  a  spirit- 
ual as  well  as  a  material  identity,  bestowed 
upon  it  by  the  Creator  to  be  the  informing 
principle  of  its  growth  and  beauty.  Why, 
then,  may  we  not  think  that  the  creative  work 
of  men's  hands  is  imbued  with  a  similar  es- 
sence, —  that  every  abode,  like  every  shrine, 
is  pervaded  by  its  distinct  and  individual  tute- 
lary presence? 


STo  **  iWoonfiffjtne 


t> 


At  the  very  writing  of  your  name  in  the 
inditing  of  this  dedication,  you  seem  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  house  of  wood  in  the 
green  forest.  I  seem  to  myself  to  be  address- 
ing a  beloved  friend,  sure  of  a  sympathetic 
hearing  and  an  appreciative  understanding  of 
my  fanciful  enthusiasm  such  as  are  not  always 
accorded  us  by  our  fellow  mortals.  How 
shall  I  account  for  this  magical  delusion? 

What  loving  heart  first  dreamed  you,  — 
what  mastery  made  the  dream  come  true? 
No  mere  fortuitous  industry,  I  am  sure,  could 
have  created  your  sightly  structure  of  wood 
and  nails,  mortar  and  bricks  and  coloured 
stain.  For  beauty  is  never  an  accident,  nor 
charm  and  loveliness  the  results  of  reckless 
chance.  Every  sill  and  rafter,  every  board 
and  beam  in  your  roof  and  walls,  had  brave 
life-  through  long  years  of  sun  and  rain,  of 
winds  and  frost  upon  the  mountainside,  be- 
fore it  was  chosen  by  destiny  for  a  place  in 
your  builded  beauty.  And  now,  as  you  stand 
in  your  serene  silence,  I  doubt  not,  all  the 

vi 


strength  of  mounting  sap  and  maturing  sun 
that  went  into  the  growth  of  your  fibre  and 
grain  persists  and  prevails  to  lend  you  fra- 
grance and  endurance  still. 

But  whence  came  to  you  the  supreme  gift 
of  personality?  What  benign  power  wrought 
you  into  such  friendliness  of  shape  and  hue? 
What  inspiration  devised  your  restful  tints 
and  generous  mould?  By  what  conjury  arose 
your  serviceable  spaciousness  with  its  digni- 
fied repose;  and  how  came  you  to  be  blessed 
with  that  rare  additional  quality  which  few 
habitations  can  boast,  a  quality  akin  to  human 
temperament,  an  atmosphere  and  distinction 
all  your  own?  Surely  at  the  prompting  of 
happy  and  unselfish  impulses  you  must  have 
been  designed,  a  place  of  rest  for  the  friend, 
and  inspiration  even  for  the  stranger!  And 
when  at  last  your  latch-string  was  hung  out, 
and  the  fire  of  hospitality  lighted  upon  your 
ample  hearth,  what  alluring  spirit  of  welcome 
radiated  from  your  open  door,  impalpably 
as  the  moonshine  for  which  you  were  named. 

vii 


In  summer  you  are  never  closed,  but  the 
sweet  air  of  the  hills  blows  balmily  through 
your  quiet  seclusion  all  day  long,  whispering 
its  enchantments  of  peace;  while  at  dusk, 
from  your  deep  verandas,  dreamful  watchers 
behold  the  great  frail  rose-gold  moon  appear 
at  the  end  of  the  Kaaterskill  clove  and  pour 
its  calm  splendour  along  the  purple  moun- 
tains. 

In  the  long  months  of  snow,  when  your 
windows  are  secured  against  the  tempest,  and 
your  dwellers  have  migrated  to  their  winter's 
work,  what  reveries  must  be  yours!  You  must 
see  again  in  remembrance  the  faces  that  have 
thronged  about  your  board  and  fire.  In  your 
rooftree  must  lurk  reverberations  of  laughter, 
reechoes  of  song,  and  the  lovely  strains  of 
imperishable  music.  The  pine  of  your  floor 
must  be  tempered  and  mellowed  by  the 
rhythm  of  many  feet  that  have  trodden  it  in 
masque  and  merrymaking,  in  festivity,  and  in 
the  daily  course  of  kindly  life.  Shall  you 
not  for  ever  recall  one  memorable  twilight, 

viii 


^0  **  Moonn'^int 


ff 


when  an  enraptured  player  at  the  piano,  ren- 
dering and  improvising  as  only  a  great  artist 
can,  filled  you  with  golden  harmonies,  as  if 
your  solemn  mountain  walls  and  streams  had 
at  last  found  interpretation  and  voice,  while 
his  hearers  sat  enthralled  under  the  wizard- 
ries of  sound?  Shall  you  not  always  remem- 
ber the  suppers  at  the  green  table,  when  night 
was  near  its  meridian,  when  the  company 
lingered  over  their  glasses,  with  toasts  and 
tales  and  mirth  and  toasts  again  and  more  un- 
extinguishable  mirth,  until  at  last  lanterns 
were  lit,  and  in  twos  and  threes  the  merry- 
makers took  their  way  through  the  silent  for- 
est to  their  lighted  cabins  among  the  hemlock 
shadows?  Can  you  forget  a  famous  cake- 
walk,  when  seventy  couples  assembled,  mar- 
shalled by  the  very  Muse  of  Comedy  herself, 
garbed  like  a  happy  Hottentot,  conducting, 
with  unsurpassed  spirit  and  gaiety  through 
the  ceremonious  Rite  of  the  Cake,  a  tatter- 
demalion gang  of  gaudy  disguised  revellers, 
hilariously  competing  for  the  coveted  prize; 

ix 


and  the  judges,  —  a  row  of  gray-haired  dig- 
nitaries sitting  aloft  in  Rembrandt  relief  be- 
hind gallery  rail  and  candlelight,  while  the 
motley  swirl  danced  to  a  finish  before  theml 
In  contrast  to  this  scene,  you  surely  remem- 
ber certain  afternoon  gatherings  of  a  sober 
sort,  when  luminous  discussions  were  held  of 
art  or  philosophy  or  other  high  theme,  and 
were  gaily  prolonged  over  tea  and  cigarettes. 
You  must  ever  fondly  treasure  the  memory  of 
many  mornings  filled  with  the  sound  of  im- 
mortal poetry,  —  the  frailties  of  Fra  Lippo 
Lippi,  the  stirring  Song  of  the  Banjo,  the 
lofty  Masque  of  Taliesen,  the  terrible  Ballad 
of  Reading  Gaol,  or  the  moving  tragedy  of 
Sohrab  and  Rustum,  read  as  poetry  is  rarely 
heard  nowadays.  As  a  crowning  joy  of  rec- 
ollection, do  you  not  often  live  over  that 
evening  when  poetry  was  illustrated  with 
tableaux  vivants,  —  incomparable  pictures  of 
Keats's  Meg  Merrilies,  fantastically  tall  and 
wise  as  she  leaned  upon  her  stick;  of  Brown- 
ing's Contemporary,  keen  of  nose  yet  kind 


JTo  **  JHoowfiiJiine 


tt 


of  eye,  in  peaked  hat  and  wide  ruff,  with  dog 
at  heels;  and  of  Malyn  of  the  Mountains, 
a  radiant  young  reality  more  lovely  than  the 
poet's  fancy! 

In  these  solitary  winter  watches,  too,  I  dare 
say  you  recherish  your  various  comforts  and 
treasures,  and  recall  the  friend  associated  with 
each  of  them,  though  some  of  your  intimates 
have  journeyed  to  the  other  side  of  the  world, 
and  some  have  gone  beyond.  There  stands 
the  chair  of  the  Princely  Friend,  who  chose 
it  because  it  invited  him  to  throw  his  leg 
over  the  arm  as  he  smoked;  this  one  is  the 
gift  of  the  most  democratic  of  aristocrats,  the 
Gentlest  of  Radicals.  In  that  cushioned  seat 
by  the  fire  a  dear  Grandmother  used  to  doze 
and  dream,  or,  with  unquenchable  spirit  in 
her  sparkling  eye,  tell  endless  stories  to  the 
insatiable  children  in  her  lap.  Here  is  the 
chamber  reserved  for  a  certain  vagabond; 
that  is  the  corner  dedicated  to  another.  On 
this  convenient  balcony  overhanging  the  ra- 
vine the  magician  of  all  your  luxuries,  alert 

xi 


Eo  ^^Moonn^int 


ff 


for  fresh  adventure,  expects  one  day  to  alight 
from  his  private  air-ship.  From  yon  cosy 
nook  behind  the  door,  the  Judge  ever  cheerily 
invites  his  friends  to  "  live  long  and  prosper." 
While  from  the  playroom  overhead  a  baby 
voice  is  heard  passing  sentence  on  an  offend- 
ing tin  soldier:  "You  stole  three  pigs  and 
a  hundred  cannons,  and  you'll  have  to  stay 
in  prison  all  your  life!  "  So  your  guest-rooms 
and  galleries  ever  throng  with  happy  pres- 
ences, once  made  welcome,  never  to  be  dis- 
possessed. 

O  unforgettable  "  Moonshine,"  this  book 
is  like  yourself,  made  of  different  elements, 
divers  thoughts  and  moods  and  fancies. 
Many  of  its  essays  were  written  within  your 
shade,  and  but  for  the  leisure  and  inspiration 
you  afforded  could  never  have  been  written 
at  all.  I  beg  you,  therefore,  not  for  any  merit 
of  its  own,  to  give  it  room  upon  the  shelves 
in  your  poets'  corner,  that  when  other  guests 
shall  come,  other  hands  open  your  door,  other 
voices  be  heard  exclaiming  over  the  wonder 

xii 


^0  **lWoonfi(t>(ne^ 

of  your  prospect,  it  may  bear  slight  but  un- 
equivocal witness  of  one  wayfarer's  gratitude 
for  all  the  solace  and  refreshment  you  have 
been  so  lavish  to  bestow.  B.  c. 


xm 


Contettts 


"^ 

PAGB 

The  Burden  of  Joy    ...••.,          i 

The  Tides  of  the  Mind      . 

7 

Of  Contentment        .         .         , 

H 

Of  Vigour        .... 

24 

The  Training  of  Instinct    . 

30 

Moving-Day    .... 

34 

A  Sea-Turn     .... 

41 

Vanitas  Vanitatum     . 

48 

The  Contemporary  Spirit  . 

54 

Horticulture 

.       60 

Speech- Culture  and  Literature     , 

67 

On  Being  Coherent  , 

.       81 

Giving  and  Taking    . 

89 

The  Secret  of  Art      . 

.       98 

A  Canon  of  Criticism 

.     107 

Realism  in  Letters     . 

.     115 

The  Note  of  Gladness 

,        122 

Sanity  and  Art           .         , 

.        130 

The  Creative  Spirit  . 

.        138 

The  Critical  Spirit    . 

146 

The  Man  Behind  the  Book 

.     i6i 

aiontmtu 


The  Migratory  Mood 

On  Tradirion  . 

Personal  Rhythm 

Ephemeral 

On  Being  Ineffectual 

The  Outskirters 

The  Artist's  Joy 

Corpus  versus  Animus 

Simplicity 

The  Magic  of  the  Woods 

Of  Civilization 

Business  and  Beauty 

The  Paths  of  Peace   . 

A  Christmas  Reverie 

Saint  Valentine 

The  March  Hare's  Madness 


169 
175 
183 
190 
194 
199 
205 
212 
218 
225 
231 
238 
247 

253 
275 
290 


CJe  Mnttitn  of  Sog 


OY  is  the  only  thing  in  the  world  more 


inevitable,  more  universal  than  sorrow.  For 
whether  it  take  the  form  of  love  or  content- 
ment or  delight  in  power,  our  capacity  for 
happiness  still  outranks  our  capacity  for  grief; 
and  however  sad  life  may  seem  to  you  and 
me  at  times,  we  cannot  but  observe  the  Ti- 
tanic gladness  of  creation.  Even  in  our  own 
small  lives  the  gladness  is  more  than  the  grief, 
the  delight  is  more  than  the  despair.  Our 
very  willingnessto  live  attests  this  truth.  In 
spite  of  failure  and  pain  and  sickness  and 
bereavement  and  the  obscure  prosecution  of 
an  incomprehensible  destiny,  we  are  glad 
enough  to  stagger  on. 

Is  it  not  good,  therefore,  to  recognize  this 
I 


2rj|e  ffvitnXin^ip  of  ^rt 

very  palpable  fact  about  existence?  And 
should  we  not  once  for  all  give  over  our  des- 
olate creed  of  disconsolate  sufifering,  and 
affirm  bravely  that  the  soul  of  man  does  not 
realize  itself  through  sorrow  and  renuncia- 
tion, but  through  happiness  and  achievement? 
[Indeed,  happiness  is  the  test  of  all  success, 
[the  measure  of  our  growth,  the  boundary  of 
lour  accomplishment.  To  be  healthy  is  to  be 
happy;  to_^love  anything  is  to  be  happy;  to 
find  out  the  truth  is  to  be  happy.  These  are 
the  three  ways  in  which  gladness  comes  to 
us;  and  unless  we  can  attain  some  measure 
of  such  joyousness  in  body,  spirit,  and  mind, 
we  may  be  very  sure  that  we  are  not  getting 
the  best  out  of  life.  Without  his  due  share  of 
each  of  these  three  kinds  of  gladness,  no  man 
can  be  greatly  happy;  and  without  something 
of  at  least  one  of  them,  no  man  can  be  happy 
at  all. 

It  is  only  reasonable  to  recognize  this 
prime  necessity  of  health,  or  the  normal  phys- 
ical condition,  as  the  basis  of  happiness  —  at 

2 


least  of  one-third  of  happiness.    To  be  com- 
fortably housed,  to  be  sufficiently  and  hygi- 
enically  clothed,  to  be  well  fed,  to  be  properly 
exercised,  to  be,  in  short,  at  the  top  of  one's 
bodily  capacity  —  no  man  should  be  content/'' 
with  less  than  this.    Yet  how  slovenly  we  are 
in  such  matters  I    Our  houses  are  often  a  mere 
storeroom  of  treasures,  or  a  clutter  of  uncom- 
fortable  furniture  and  hideous  bric-a-brac; 
our  clothing,  for  half  of  us  at  least,   is  an 
exasperating  menace,  hampering  the  graceful^y''^ 
motions  of  the  body,  cultivating  disease,  and 
irritating  the  temper  beyond  endurance;   our 
food,  when  it  is  not  too  rich,  is  usually  ill 
assorted   and  worse   cooked;    our  habits   of 
work,  or  exercise,  and  care  of  the  body,  are 
seldom  other  than  dire  necessity  arranges  forv 
us.     Our  constant  dependence  on  drugs  and 
physicians  is,  more  than  nine-tenths  of  it,  the 
result  of  gross  ignorance  of  natural  laws;  and^ 
the  other  tenth  is  most  likely  the  result  of 
carelessness.     Why  not  make  a  pleasure  of  \ 
physical  existence,  by  bringing  to  its  regula-  ] 

3 


tion  a  little  common  sense,  a  little  fore- 
thought, a  little  care,  a  little  knowledge  of 
the  simplest  laws  of  health?  That  were  surely 
better  than  to  die  of  lethargy  and  indiges- 
tion. And  yet  how  unusual  it  is  to  see  a 
human  being  in  perfect  health  and  alive  to 
all  the  innocent  wholesome  pleasures  of  our 
mere  animal  existence!  How  commonly  one 
sees  the  miserable,  stuffy,  neglected,  and  ail- 
ing body,  with  no  more  instinct  for  physical 
enjoyment  than  the  unfortunate  lap-dog 
which  shares  the  stupidity  of  its  owner. 

If  there  were  no  need  for  social  reform 
other  than  this,  that  there  might  be  less  grind- 
ing toil  for  some  and  more  wholesome  en- 
forced exertion  for  others,  it  would  still  be 
supremely  necessary  for  the  preservation  of 
the  race.  We  make  very  lavish  boasts  of  our 
civilization,  our  enlightenment,  our  progress, 
and  yet  the  multitude  of  intelligent  persons 
who  shudder  at  the  mention  of  fresh  air  and 
cold  water  is  unbelievable;    while  they  still 


continue  to  stuff  themselves  with  violent  med- 
icines and  unwholesome  food. 

This  is  only  the  most  obvious  and  primitive 
sort  of  happiness,  such  as  savages  enjoy.  It 
is  something  to  which  we  are  all  justly  en- 
titled, but  which  we  have  too  foolishly  aban- 
doned. And  unless  we  are  wise  enough  to 
return  to  these  simple  and  natural  pleasures 
of  physical  being,  we  shall  not  only  regret  it 
as  individuals,  but  as  a  race  and  nation.  We 
ought  to  have  too  much  pride  to  be  sickly  and 
weak.  We  ought  to  perceive  that  beauty  is 
based  upon  health,  —  indeed,  that  beauty  is 
only  the  outward  seeming  and  appearance  of 
normal  health.  This  is  not  a  visionist's  the- 
ory. It  is  a  very  sober  scrap  of  the  truth. 
It  does  not  apply  to  mankind  at  large;  it 
applies  to  you,  whoever  you  are,  who  read 
these  paragraphs.  If  you  are  a  man  and 
think  yourself  tolerably  well  conditioned,  the 
chances  are  that  you  would  be  still  happier 
physically  if  your  collar  were  not  so  high, 
or  your  shoes  not  so  tight,  or  if  your  hours 

5 


out-of-doors  were  longer.  While  if  you  are 
a  woman,  it  is  certain  that  you  never  take  a 
single  full  breath  during  your  waking  hours; 
and  that  if  you  were  asked  to  walk  half  a  mile 
on  a  country  road,  you  would  be  compelled 
to  hobble  over  the  ground  like  a  ridiculous 
Oriental. 

All  this,  of  course,  is  only  the  beginning 
of  joy,  yet  it  is  indispensable.  We  must  carry 
an  elated  chest,  that  there  may  be  room  for 
a  happy  heart  within.  A  careful  regimen  for 
the  body  will  not  secure  happiness  of  the 
spirit,  but  it  will  make  us  ready  for  the  first 
approach  of  joy.  If  we  would  entertain 
angels,  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  be  always 
prepared  for  them. 


CJe  Sitrea  of  tije  imntr 


Always  through  the  ocean  the  ranging 
tides  are  sweeping  with  flux  and  counterflux, 
like  enormous  arteries  throbbing  under  the 
bright  vesture  of  the  sea.  There  are  the  di- 
urnal tides  that  flow  and  ebb  and  pause  and 
flow  again  continually,  hung  in  space  by  the 
mystery  of  gravitation;  with  the  thrust  of 
the  sun  and  the  pull  of  the  great  ponderous 
moon,  they  swing  around  the  earth.  But  to 
us  creepers  by  the  shore  they  seem  only 
streaming  currents  of  blue  or  red  or  greenish 
water.  Then  there  are  the  greater  tides  — 
properly  speaking,  ocean  currents  —  which 
have  their  bounds  and  frontiers,  their  appor- 
tioned cycles  to  journey,  shores  to  scour, 
islands  to  build,  reefs  to  thread,  and  the  un- 

7 


known  depths  of  unplumbed  immensity  to 
traverse. 

To  speak  by  a  metaphor,  there  are  tides  of 
the  mind  also.  Each  man's  mind,  perhaps, 
is  something  like  an  insignificant  rock-pool 
on  our  granite  coast.  It  may  be  sleeping  idly 
in  the  sun,  and  you  would  take  it  to  be  a  mere 
chance  rain  puddle,  or  at  best  the  oversplash 
of  storm,  soon  to  become  stagnant,  to  evap- 
orate, to  pass  away.  But  you  mistake ;  it  has 
somewhere  out  of  sight  a  hidden  passage  of 
communication  with  the  great  deep,  eternally 
breathing  down  the  shore. 

On  parts  of  the  coast  where  the  soil  per- 
mits it,  as  in  the  Bahamas,  for  instance,  with 
their  coral  rock  foundation,  there  are  wells  of 
sweet  water  within  a  few  feet  of  the  sea,  that 
rise  and  fall  regularly  with  the  tide,  yet  are 
always  fresh  and  wholesome  to  drink;  so  ad- 
mirable is  the  filtering  alchemy  of  the  earth. 
There  are  minds  of  this  sort,  the  thinkers  of 
the  race,  able  to  keep  always  in  close  touch 
with  the  vast  profound  of  truth,  and  able  at 

8 


the  same  time  to  transmute  it  in  some  way  into 
their  own  limpid  expression  for  the  kindly 
service  of  man.  Such  a  man,  whether  he  be 
poet  or  preacher,  artist  or  agitator,  is  more 
than  merely  "  a  well  of  English  undefiled;  " 
he  is  a  well  of  spiritual  refreshment.  Shake- 
speare, Marcus  Aurelius,  Goethe,  Darwin, 
Plato,  Whitman,  Browning,  Job,  Virgil, 
Hugo,  Kant,  Spinoza,  St.  Francis  —  pagan, 
saint,  or  skeptic,  it  matters  not  at  all  —  these 
were  wells  of  the  undefiled  truth.  They 
might  be  the  fountain  springs  of  that  stream 
Emerson  speaks  of  in  his  poem  "  Two  Riv- 


ers." 


"  So  forth  and  brighter  fares  my  stream,  — 
Who  drink  it  shall  not  thirst  again  ; 
No  darkness  stains  its  equal  gleam, 
And  ages  drop  in  it  like  rain." 

Yes,  and  how  we  prize  a  good  well !  Think 
how  many  generations  have  drunk  from  that 
clear  fountain  which  Chaucer  gave  to  Eng- 
land! A  new  spring  is  discovered,  and  we  try 
its  taste,  —  first  two  or  three  put  it  to  their 

9 


2r|ie  iFtUnlrsJitji  of  ^tt 

lips,  then  twenty,  then  a  hundred,  then  per- 
haps a  hundred  thousand,  its  fame  is  so  ex- 
cellent. Then,  if  it  is  really  good  water,  and 
unfailing  for  human  need,  we  and  our  chil- 
dren may  drink  of  it  for  centuries. 

We  read  books  for  the  same  reason  that  we 
drink  of  a  well,  I  fancy.  The  natural  element 
is  necessary  for  the  body;  and  we  bring  our- 
selves daily  into  contact  with  the  vast  primal 
chemic  forces  of  the  universe,  else  we  should 
perish.  So,  too,  the  mind  has  its  necessity 
of  nourishment;  it  must  be  brought  daily  into 
immediate  relation  with  the  outer  vast  of 
spiritual  truth  from  which  it  springs.  It  may 
drink  from  books,  or  it  may  find  the  sea  of 
actual  life  sufficient  for  it.  But  water  it  must 
have,  sweet  or  salt. 

Now  there  is  nothing  mysterious,  or  elect, 
or  exclusive  in  art,  or  books,  or  poetry.  Our 
only  use  of  these  things,  our  only  joy  in  them, 
is  this:  that  they  put  our  small  selves  into 
relation  with  the  great  tides  of  truth.  How 
a  draught  from  Carlyle  will  sluice  the  dust 

lO 


Ef^t  mtftu  of  m  iWinU 

out  of  one's  brain!  For  the  mind  of  every 
man  would  perish  in  a  day  if  it  had  no  chan- 
nel leading  out  to  the  source  of  thought  I  It 
is  not  a  question  of  right  reason,  or  even  of 
reason  at  all;  it  is  a  question  of  life,  of  com- 
mon joy  and  sorrow,  and  love  and  pleasure  in 
beauty. 

It  has  been  said  that  happiness  is  not  gov- 
erned by  circumstance,  that  it  depends  on  the 
tides  of  the  mind.  Have  you  not  noticed  how 
capricious  our  own  capacity  for  happiness 
seems?  To-day  every  condition  may  make 
for  pleasure,  —  a  morning  unsurpassed  for 
loveliness,  an  easy  conscience,  indulgent 
friends,  a  well-earned  respite  from  routine, 
wealth,  plenty,  amusement,  —  and  yet  the 
magic  moment  of  radiant  joy  fails  to  arrive. 
The  tide  is  setting  the  wrong  way.  To-mor- 
row, on  the  contrary,  everything  is  adverse; 
it  is  a  mean,  drizzly,  unhealthy  day  in  town, 
business  is  vexing,  men  are  untrustworthy,  one 
failure  follows  another,  our  home-folk  berate 
us,    our    clothes    are    shabby,    the    cars    are 

II 


©lie  iFttentfsfitji  of  ^vt 

crowded  to  indecency;  it  matters  not  the  least 
in  the  world.  From  some  undiscovered 
source,  there  suffuses  us  a  sense  of  joyful 
content,  an  unfathomable  draught  of  happi- 
ness which  nothing  can  poison  or  take  away. 
Probably,  unknown  to  ourselves,  we  have 
done  some  act  or  met  some  thought,  which 
put  us  in  communication  with  absolute  truth. 
One  cannot  tell.  It  was  a  touch  of  the  tides 
of  the  mind. 

But  this  is  certain :  never,  by  taking  thought 
for  the  outward  conditions  alone,  can  one 
secure  happiness,  nor  control  these  uncharted 
mental  tides.  I  dare  say,  however,  that  we 
might  be  helped  in  governing  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  happiness  by  two  rules.  The  first  is 
this:  See  that  your  body  is  well  cared  for. 
The  body  is  the  reservoir  through  which  the 
tides  of  the  mind  will  flow.  You  must  keep 
it  clean  and  well  ventilated,  and  thoroughly 
repaired.  To  do  this  needs  leisure  and  work 
combined.  And  the  second  rule  is  very  like 
the  first:    See  that  every  other  body  is  well 

12 


^He  ZiXft&  of  t^t  iWfnlr 

cared  for.  This  will  give  you  a  sufficient 
spiritual  exercise  to  ensure  a  wholesome  thirst 
for  happiness ;  and  your  soul  will  then  refuse 
to  be  put  off  with  any  of  the  numerous  de- 
coctions of  mere  pleasure. 


13 


^f  Contentment 


One  may  say  of  contentment,  as  of  happi- 
ness, that  it  is  rather  an  attitude  of  mind  than 
a  state  of  being,  and  depends  more  on  the  out- 
look we  assume  toward  life  than  on  the  actual 
return  we  receive  from  it.  If  you  look  for 
contentment  in  those  about  you,  you  perceive 
it  is  not  a  matter  of  fortune  nearly  so  much 
as  of  temperament,  and  those  who  are  discon- 
tented in  the  midst  of  abundance  are  as  many 
as  those  who  are  happy  in  their  poverty. 

The  discontent  of  the  poor  is  explicable 
enough,  and  the  happiness  of  the  prosperous; 
but  how  shall  we  account  for  the  serenity  of 
the  first  and  peevishness  of  the  second,  when 
we  observe  it?  Hardly  otherwise  than  by  at- 
tributing their  happiness  and  their  misery  to 

14 


<!^t  a^onttntmtnt 

causes  which  arise  in  the  inner  self,  and  by 
forgetting  in  every  case  the  worldly  condition 
of  the  individual.  You  may  see  any  day  in 
the  park  sour  old  age  rolling  by  in  a  Victoria 
behind  a  jovial  flunkey,  and  equally  sour 
youth  dashing  madly  down  the  bridle-path, 
luxurious  and  discontented  in  the  hot  pursuit 
of  distraction.  In  the  next  instant  appear  two 
others  of  like  age,  sex,  means  and  circum- 
stance, yet  each  is  the  picture  of  content,  so 
that  every  beholder  smiles  and  is  made  happy 
at  the  mere  sight  of  their  happiness.  So  it  is 
in  every  zone  of  the  community;  you  can 
never  tell  from  any  story  of  a  man  whether 
he  is  happy  or  not.  You  must  wait  until  you 
see  him.  The  eye  will  discover  him,  for  his 
own  eye  will  betray  him.  If  he  be  bankrupt 
in  the  business  of  life,  you  may  know  it  im- 
mediately, though  he  were  studded  with  sap- 
phires and  rode  in  a  hansom  of  gold.  But 
if  he  have  an  ample  balance  in  the  Bank  of 
Joy,  you  may  know  that,  too,  no  matter  how 
sorry  a  figure  he  may  cut  in  a  tailor's  estimate. 

15 


It  is  not  being  out  at  heels  that  makes  a  man 
discontented;    it  is  being  out  at  heart. 

To  be  contented  is  to  be  good  friends  with 
yourself.  He  who  has  no  quarrel  with  him- 
self will  have  no  quarrel  with  the  world; 
while  he  who  is  at  enmity  with  himself  will 
hardly  have  a  friend  on  earth.  We  must  be 
reconciled  to  ourselves  if  we  would  have  the 
enduring  affection  of  others.  For  as  long  as 
we  dislike  ourselves,  we  are  put  in  a  temper 
of  carping  and  cynical  uneasiness  far  from 
lovable;  we  breed  an  unamiable  disposition, 
and  affect  others  as  we  affect  ourselves  —  as 
ill-natured,  querulous  persons.  The  moment 
we  are  contented  —  the  moment  we  bring  the 
distracted  elements  of  our  nature  into  some- 
thing like  order  —  that  moment  we  begin  to 
taste  the  happiness  of  peace.  Having  no 
hatred,  nor  disgust,  nor  annoyance  toward  self 
left,  we  can  have  none  left  toward  others.  We 
appear  what  we  are,  normal  beings,  full  of  the 
natural  blessedness  of  life;  and  friends  start 
up  for  us  from  every  roadside.    A  man  is  his 

i6 


^t  atonttntmtni 

own  worst  enemy,  but  not  his  own  best  friend ; 
for  when  he  is  at  odds  with  himself,  every 
man's  hand  is  hard  against  him;  but  when  he 
has  made  peace  with  himself,  he  has  the  whole 
world  of  friends  to  choose  from. 

"  Ah,  yes,  but  the  question  is,"  you  say, 
"how  shall  a  man  be  friends  with  himself? 
How  shall  he  keep  on  good  terms  with  his 
conscience,  and  be  reconciled  to  his  own  sane 
reason?  " 

'  The  question,  I  believe,  gives  a  hint  of  the 
best  possible  answer.  It  implies  a  certain 
divergence  of  purpose  between  the  different 
members  of  our  nature  —  an  occasional,  in- 
deed a  frequent,  difference  of  opinion  between 
rational  judgment  and  instinctive  desire,  or 
between  imperious  aspiration  whose  authority 
is  not  to  be  denied  and  compulsory  appetite 
whose  dictates  are  not  to  be  gainsaid.  I  shall 
only  be  reconciled  with  myself  when  these 
associate  powers,  inherent  in  my  being  and 
constantly  asserting  themselves,  are  brought 
into  order  and  poise.     So  long  as  either  one 

17 


2rfie  JFvitnXtnf^ip  of  ^vi 

of  the  three  is  allowed  to  wholly  dominate 
the  other  two,  just  so  long  shall  I  suffer  in- 
ward strife. 

If  I  live  for  senses  alone,  I  shall  taste  the 
discontent  of  soul  and  mind;  I  shall  know 
neither  repose  of  spirit  nor  serenity  of  reason. 
I  may  soak  myself  in  the  luxury  and  beauty 
of  all  that  wealth  can  afford,  but  the  magic 
moment  of  happiness  will  still  be  as  far  off 
as  ever. 

If  I  live  for  reason  alone,  devoting  my  life 
to  science  or  philosophy  or  theoretical  prop- 
aganda, neglecting  all  the  good  things  of  the 
world  as  it  is,  and  denying  myself  all  emo- 
tional enjoyment — all  enthusiasm  and  gen- 
erous appreciation  —  I  shall  still  fail  of  hap- 
piness; I  shall  still  be  worrying  the  bone  of 
discontent,  for  my  nature  will  be  ill-poised 
and  abnormal,  at  war  with  itself  as  of  old. 

And,  again,  if  I  live  for  my  moral  nature 
alone,  a  life  of  self-denial  and  asceticism  and 
meditation  and  prayer,  however  lofty  my 
ideal,  I  may  still  fail  to  find  contentment,  for 

i8 


4^t  (gronuntwent 

I  may  have  starved  my  love  of  beauty  and 
strangled  my  love  of  truth. 

No  human  creature  can  thrive  and  come 
near  perfection  without  giving  equal  heed  to 
the  curiosity  for  truth,  the  instinct  for  beauty, 
and  the  impulse  for  doing  right.  And  it  is 
only  as  these  three  great  instinctive  forces 
come  into  something  like  fair  accord  that  we 
begin  to  know  contentment.  Contentment  is 
the  index  of  poise  in  a  character,  while  dis- 
content is  an  indication  —  nay,  is  the  very 
essence  —  of  distraction.  To  be  distraught,  to 
do  one  thing  when  we  perceive  we  ought  to 
do  another,  to  see  the  truth  clearly  and  not 
have  heroism  enough  to  follow  it,  to  lead  an 
inner  life  of  turmoil  —  this  is  the  beginning 
of  death,  the  gradual  dissolution  of  character 
we  nearly  all  undergo.  It  may  be  habit  or 
conscience  or  subservience  to  conventionality 
that  enslaves  us  and  undoes  us  at  the  last;  it 
may  be  a  faltering  will  and  a  fickle  heart;  it 
may  be  a  dull  and  sleepy  mind.  The  disaster 
is  the  same ;  we  feel  the  diversity  of  purposes 

19 


of  the  warring  intuitions  within  us,  and  the 
goblin  of  discontent  crouches  on  our  door-step. 

But  let  me  for  one  instant  grow  aware  of 
the  loveliness  of  poise  in  character,  the  sure 
serenity  and  happiness  that  come  with  any- 
thing like  harmonious  culture,  and  at  once  I 
am  transformed.  I  perceive  what  content- 
ment means,  and  how  it  has  not  a  thing  to  do 
with  possessions  or  conditions  or  so-called  suc- 
cess, but  abides  in  the  individual,  only  await- 
ing development.  Contentment  is  the  peace 
of  still  currents  which  have  joined  and  min- 
gled in  one  superb  sweep  of  force ;  discontent 
is  the  thresh  of  opposing  tides.  Having 
known  whence  contentment  comes,  I  know 
well  how  best  to  secure  it,  and  all  my  days 
must  thenceforth  be  given  to  the  threefold 
culture  which  alone  can  lead  us  in  the  perilous 
way  toward  perfection. 

But  this  word  culture,  or  self-culture,  does 
not  imply  selfishness.  We  shall  find  that  in 
the  spiritual  life,  where  the  will  is  manifest 
and  all  activities  take  their  rise,  one  of  the 

20 


i^t  eontrnttnent 

greatest  sources  of  happiness  is  in  serving 
others.  We  shall  find  no  contentment  if  we 
do  not  know  that.  And  to  serve  others  as 
well  as  to  serve  ourselves,  practical  resources 
are  needed  —  the  good  common  necessities  of 
life  and  good  uncommon  luxuries,  too.  If 
we  would  know  how  much  luxury  to  allow, 
I  dare  say  we  shall  find  the  answer  to  that 
question  also  in  our  threefold  ideal  of  culture. 
We  shall  not  limit  a  man's  wealth  by  what 
he  can  earn  or  make,  but  by  what  he  can  use. 
Many  a  man  goes  on  multiplying  his  wealth 
just  because  he  has  not  the  capacity  to  make 
use  of  what  he  already  has.  What  he  really 
hungers  for  is  some  vent  for  his  mental  or 
emotional  and  aesthetic  nature  which  he  has 
been  starving  all  his  life  in  the  pursuit  of  gain. 
He  does  not  know  this;  he  only  knows  he  is 
discontented  with  what  he  has  got,  and  thinks 
there  is  nothing  that  will  satisfy  him  but  to 
get  more;  whereas  the  truth  is  he  has  too 
much  already.  His  character  is  debauched  in 
its  active  and  practical   and  executive  side. 

21 


2rt|e  iFtientrslftiji  of  ^vi 

Then  if  he  turns  to  find  contentment  in  pleas- 
ure, he  only  finds  distraction  and  dissipation; 
he  is  still  living  wholly  in  the  region  of  phys- 
ical activity,  whereas  he  really  needs  to  live 
in  the  region  of  the  intelligence  and  the  spirit. 
He  needs  to  know  more,  and  to  love  more, 
and  to  appreciate  more ;  not  to  do  more.  He 
has  done  too  much  already. 

Just  the  same  criticism  applies  to  the  exclu- 
sive bookworm  who  is  debauched  in  his  men- 
tal nature  and  has  more  knowledge  than  he 
can  possibly  use.  He,  too,  is  discontented 
and  thinks  nothing  will  satisfy  him  but  more 
and  more  learning;  whereas  it  is  not  learning 
but  life  that  he  needs  —  the  satisfaction  of 
accomplishment.  Of  the  artist,  too,  you  may 
say  the  like.  His  whole  nature  is  probably 
given  over  to  appreciating  the  world  about 
him,  to  receiving  impressions  and  recording 
them,  to  developing  and  cultivating  his  moral 
nature,  while  very  often  his  mind  is  untrained 
and  ill-informed.  His  culture  has  been  sadly 
ill-balanced  and  an  enormous  ennui  takes  hold 

22 


^t  Contentment 

of  him  —  he  does  not  know  why.  Perceiving 
only  discontent  within  himself,  he  fancies  that 
contentment  is  to  be  found  farther  on  in  the 
road  he  has  been  following,  and  he  grows  more 
and  more  emotional,  more  and  more  absorbed 
in  the  aesthetic  appreciation  of  life,  and  less 
and  less  capable  of  thought  or  action  and,  of 
course,  less  and  less  contented  every  day.  To 
the  artist,  the  scientist,  the  man  of  action,  the 
danger  lies  in  specialization:  the  man  has  be- 
come absorbed  in  his  trade;  he  is  no  longer 
a  man,  but  a  tradesman,  whether  his  trade 
be  commerce  or  art  or  philosophy.  He  can 
never  be  happy  until  he  tries  to  be  a  man  first 
of  all,  and  wears  his  profession  as  lightly  as 
he  would  wear  a  flower  in  his  buttonhole. 


23 


^f  ^iflour 


You  may  say  at  once  that  the  necessity  of 
vigour  is  self-evident.  But  one  must  dis- 
tinguish between  vigour,  the  cultivable  vir- 
tue, and  vitality,  the  essence  of  life.  The 
former  we  may  acquire,  the  latter  is  the  gift 
of  the  gods.  We  may  display  vitality  with 
little  vigour;  and  with  a  spark  of  that  indis- 
pensable fire  we  may  kindle  a  conflagration 
of  energy. 

In  the  realm  of  art  and  expression  this  or 
that  achievement  may  have  essential  vitality 
and  still  be  lacking  in  vigour.  And  yet  it  is 
vigour  that  gives  art  its  power  and  makes  it 
prevail.  You  may  see  a  painting  or  a  piece 
of  modelling,  accurate,  poised,  beautiful,  deli- 
cate, and  quite  flawless  in  execution;  so  that 
at  first  you  are  inclined  to  pronounce  it  a  bit 

24 


of  perfect  art;  until  after  a  time  it  grows 
tame;  you  begin  to  tire  of  it;  the  charm  of 
mere  loveliness  of  line  or  tone  has  not  been 
enough  to  hold  your  admiration.  The  thing 
has  lacked  vigour;  it  has  not  that  electric 
power  of  impressing  itself  upon  one,  so  need- 
ful to  make  perfection  more  perfect  still. 
For  perfection  is  not  merely  the  cutting  away 
of  imperfections,  but  the  energizing  and  vital- 
izing of  the  chosen  form.  It  is  not  enough  in 
art  to  secure  perfect  form,  a  perfect  colour, 
a  perfect  tone;  it  is  necessary  also  (it  is  even 
more  necessary)  to  make  them  live.  It  is  not 
enough  to  create  shapes  of  beauty;  we  must 
give  them  vigour  as  well,  so  that  they  may 
survive  and  prevail  against  what  is  indiffer- 
ent and  unlovely  and  inimical  to  joy.  Passive 
beauty  is  well,  but  active  beauty  is  best. 

Then,  too,  lack  of  vigour  will  mean  lack  of 
growth.  The  artist  who  has  no  exuberance, 
no  superabundance  of  vigour  to  impart  to  his 
creations,  will  not  have  enough  to  ensure  his 
own  development.     What  he  is  he  will  re- 

25 


STfte  ffvitnXf^f^ip  of  ^tt 

main.  You  need  look  for  no  wonder-working 
from  him  in  future  years.  All  his  skilled 
hand  was  able  to  do  it  has  done.  The  limited 
energy  at  his  command  has  accomplished  his 
utmost  in  its  faultless,  but  unliving,  creations; 
and  no  superfluous  vitality  remains  to  be 
transmuted  into  new  vitality  of  the  art  or  to 
expend  itself  in  new  enterprises  of  culture. 

With  vigour  we  may  hope  for  anything, 
without  it  there  is  no  future.  It  was  vigour, 
the  profusion  of  energy,  the  redundance  of 
vitality,  that  created  and  sustains  the  earth; 
and  nothing  short  of  this  will  create  it  anew 
in  forms  of  beauty  under  the  hand  of  the 
artist,  or  lend  to  these  forms  the  endurance 
needed  to  confront  the  wear  of  time. 

How  necessary,  then,  for  the  artist  to  have 
vigour  at  all  costs  —  vigour  of  the  whole  per- 
sonality, body,  mind,  and  spirit!  And  cer- 
tainly quite  as  necessary  for  all  of  us  laymen 
as  well.  And  it  will  not  suffice  us  to  have 
mental  vigour  alone,  or  physical  vigour  alone, 
or  moral  vigour  alone;  we  must  have  a  bal- 

26 


0t  TiQonv 

ance  of  these.  For  otherwise  we  should  make 
no  real  progress;  we  should  begin  to  revolve 
upon  ourselves,  and  be  deflected  from  our  true 
course.  But  a  complete  and  poised  personal 
vigour,  strong,  intelligent,  and  happy  —  who 
shall  say  how  far  it  may  not  go,  or  set  limits 
to  its  achievements? 

We  recognize  this  need  of  a  balance  of 
vigour  in  our  academic  training,  where  ath- 
letics are  encouraged,  to  counteract  the  bad 
physical  effects  of  overmentalization.  And 
college  sports  have  come  to  be  almost  as  im- 
portant as  college  studies.  There  is  one  im- 
portant difference,  however.  College  studies 
are  a  training  of  the  mind;  college  sports  are 
not  an  educational  training  of  the  body.  They 
serve  to  develop  muscle  to  some  extent;  but 
they  do  so  in  a  very  primitive  and  ineffectual 
way.  They  are  not  followed  to  give  vigour  to 
the  personality  through  the  body,  as  they 
should  be  followed;  but  to  dissipate  its  en- 
ergy. They  are  not  an  education,  but  a  diver- 
sion, an  amusement.    If  colleges  made  it  their 

27 


5ri|t  ffvitnXfu'^ip  of  ^tt 

object  to  see  which  men  could  read  the  great- 
est number  of  books  in  a  given  time,  or  mem- 
orize the  greatest  number  of  facts,  that  would 
be  a  scheme  of  mental  training  parallelled  to 
the  physical  training  we  now  have.  And  yet 
with  a  very  little  wise  direction  of  physical 
culture  in  .our  schools  and  colleges  an  enor- 
mous result  could  be  obtained  in  added  vig- 
our. We  have,  of  course,  a  few  teachers  who 
perceive  this  need,  but  as  yet  their  influence 
has  made  too  little  headway  against  the  tide 
of  popular  misapprehension  on  this  point.  It 
is  not  generally  perceived  that  the  usual  phys- 
ical development  of  the  modern  athlete  is 
onesided  and  unlovely;  that  his  muscle  is  not 
only  cultivated  at  the  expense  of  his  charac- 
ter (or  rather,  I  should  say,  to  the  neglect  of 
his  mind  and  spirit),  but  that  even  his  phy- 
sique has  not  the  grace  and  ease  and  beauty 
which  should  inherently  belong  to  it.  The 
modern  college  man  ought  surely  to  rival  the 
ancient  Greek  for  beauty,  for  vigour  of  mind 
and  spirit  as  well  as  of  body.    Instead  of  that, 

28 


0t  TCflOttt 

the  average  college  man  who  has  given  much 
time  to  athletics  is  sadly  lacking  in  graceful- 
ness and  poise.  Our  idea  of  the  college  ath- 
lete is  perilously  like  the  figure  of  a  well- 
groomed  young  ruffian. 

Now  ruffianism  is  no  essential  part  of  a 
good  physical  training.  It  exists  in  our  stand- 
ard of  physical  excellence,  because  our  men 
are  badly  taught  —  or  rather  because  they  are 
not  taught  at  all.  Athletics  are  cultivated  (as 
it  is  called),  but  proper  motion,  proper  use 
and  control  of  the  body,  with  due  regard  to  a 
directing  mind  and  an  indwelling  spirit,  are 
almost  nowhere  inculcated.  The  result  is 
strength,  rather  than  vigour  —  ruffianism, 
rather  than  refinement. 

Yet  physical  training  may  be  made  one  of 
the  most  powerful  agents  for  the  highest  cul- 
ture of  character. 


29. 


Ci)e  Emininfl  of  in^fintt 


Certainly  we  do  not  give  our  instinct  any- 
thing like  a  fair  chance  in  this  modern  life. 
We  have  arranged  our  moral  obligations  and 
our  spiritual  duties  by  codes  more  or  less 
severe;  we  have  hedged  about  our  material 
life  with  such  complete  safety  and  so  many 
conventions  that  there  remains  comparatively 
little  scope  for  the  individual  will  to  exercise 
its  initiative  choice.  Our  path  of  conduct  is 
so  closely  prescribed  that  range  of  choice  is 
limited,  and  instinct  atrophies.  This  is  wrong, 
surely.  It  must  be  culpable  to  allow  any 
power,  so  delicate,  so  strong,  so  beneficent 
and  trustworthy  as  the  human  instinct,  to 
deteriorate  and  grow  inoperative  from  any 
cause  whatever. 

30 


^i^e  EvnininQ  of  Mntintt 

Yet  every  day  we  neglect  to  consult  our 
instinct.  How  many  of  us,  when  we  sit  down 
at  table,  think  instinctively  what  we  should 
prefer  to  eat?  For  the  most  part  we  consume 
what  is  set  before  us,  without  question  — 
pickles,  candies,  raw  fruits,  and  fried  abom- 
inations without  number  —  regardless  of  util- 
ity or  consequence.  Then,  as  a  reward  of  our 
own  stupidity,  we  must  send  for  a  doctor  just 
so  often  to  undo  the  effects  of  our  folly.  Even 
those  of  us  who  have  sense  enough  to  con- 
sider their  food  at  all  are  for  the  most  part 
content  to  regulate  their  diet  according  to 
some  hygienic  formula,  more  or  less  admira- 
ble, no  doubt,  but  certainly  not  universally 
applicable.  Yet  all  the  while  here  is  instinct 
only  waiting  to  be  consulted  to  give  us  pretty 
sure  and  sound  advice. 

True,  most  of  us  could  hardly  depend  on 
our  own  choice  now  to  guide  our  appetite; 
for  instinct  has  been  so  hampered  and 
thwarted  and  choked  and  disregarded  that 
it  has   almost  ceased   to   operate   altogether. 

31 


When  we  ought  to  consult  it  in  regard  to 
the  conduct  of  the  body,  for  the  maintenance 
of  this  physical  life,  it  is  really  not  our  in- 
stinct that  we  consult  at  all,  but  our  reason. 
We  have  made  so  much  of  reason  that  we 
cannot  get  it  out  of  the  way  and  allow  instinct 
to  govern  for  the  moment.  Yet  there  are 
regions  of  activity  where  instinct  should  lead 
and  reason  only  advise.  You  and  I  each  have 
an  instinct  as  to  what  is  best  for  us  in  food 
or  rest  or  sleep  or  exertion,  if  we  would  only 
cultivate  it,  only  give  it  play  in  our  lives. 
And  if  that  instinct  were  educated,  it  would 
guide  us  quite  as  infallibly  in  these  matters 
as  our  reason  does  in  matters  of  actual  knowl- 
edge and  thought;  quite  as  infallibly  as  our 
conscience  does  in  matters  of  right  and  wrong. 
Our  instinct  is  a  sort  of  conscience  for  the 
body,  and  deserves  our  care  and  obedience 
just  as  much  as  does  that  preceptor  of  morals. 
But  we  must  not  limit  the  realm  of  instinct 
to  the  governance  of  the  animal  body.  We 
must  recall  that  it  is  a  human  instinct,  and 

32 


srtje  KvaininQ  of  Muiintt 

has  sane  wisdom  applicable  to  all  the  doings 
of  men.  If  I  meet  a  new  acquaintance,  my 
judgment  of  him  must  be  made  up  from  my 
instinctive  perception  of  the  man,  as  well  as 
from  the  deductions  of  reason  and  intuition. 
I  shall  be  told  certain  facts  concerning  him, 
perhaps,  and  to  these  facts  I  apply  logic.  I 
shall  also  have  certain  more  or  less  definite 
feelings  about  him,  both  sentimental  and  sym- 
pathetic (or  antipathetic),  and  these  feelings 
are  derived  from  intuition  and  instinct.  I 
shall  know  immediately  something  of  him 
spiritually.  I  cannot  tell  how;  and  I  shall 
know  something  of  him  through  my  senses,  by 
instinct. 

It  is  good  to  reason  and  to  make  the  reason 
supreme  in  this  life.  But  it  is  fatal  to  dis- 
regard either  intuition  or  instinct.  And  of 
these  two  indispensable  guides,  instinct  is  the 
most  neglected,  the  most  in  need  of  reinstate- 
ment in  our  regard. 


33 


iWot^ma-^ag 


Moving  -  Day  is  not  a  festival  the  sentimen- 
talist loves.  For  him  it  is  a  time  of  memories, 
redolent  of  old  sorrows  and  vanished  joys;  he 
clings  to  his  associations,  and  changes  his 
home  reluctantly.  It  is  his  habit  to  invest 
things  with  an  aroma  of  dedication,  if  I  may 
say  so,  as  ancient  churches  are  saturated  with 
incense.  Everything  he  has  ever  owned  pos- 
sesses for  the  sentimentalist  attachments 
hardly  known  to  the  literal  mind.  And  the 
larger,  the  more  universal  the  possession,  the 
stronger  the  attachment.  So  that  his  home, 
his  town,  his  native  country,  take  hold  of  the 
sentimentalist's  heart  with  ropes  of  perdura- 
ble toughness.  In  this  respect  you  may  say 
that  the  sentimentalist  belongs  to  the  cat  fam- 

34 


ily.  He  is  very  imperfectly  domesticated,  but 
his  habit  of  locality  is  phenomenally  devel- 
oped. He  has  none  of  that  doggy  loyalty 
which  would  lead  him  to  desert  the  ancestral 
fireside  without  a  pang,  if  ever  friendship 
should  demand  the  move.  Thinking  himself 
all  heart,  he  is  sometimes  a  heartless  creature, 
living  on  atmosphere  and  losing  the  solider 
joys  of  loving. 

Your  true  sentimentalist,  too,  is  a  prince  of 
procrastinators.  He  cannot  bring  himself  to 
a  decision,  and  action  affects  him  like  the 
rheumatism.  Witness  "  Sentimental  Tommy," 
whose  soul  abhorred  the  necessity  of  choosing, 
as  a  hen  abhors  water.  While  other  men  are 
making  fortunes,  building  houses,  marrying 
beauties,  discovering  the  south  pole,  establish- 
ing trusts,  ruling  savages,  or  overturning  em- 
pires, your  sentimentalist  is  making  up  his 
precious  mind.  Like  the  rustic,  he  waits  for 
the  river  to  run  by;  and,  while  he  stands  emo- 
tionalizing and  moralizing,  the  stream  of 
events  has  moved  swiftly  on,  carrying  the 

35 


flotsam  of  fortune  beyond  his  grasp.  You 
may  even  hear  him  bemoaning  his  destiny, 
when  a  little  timeliness,  a  little  presence  of 
mind,  a  little  zest  and  courage  would  have 
saved  the  day. 

To  move,  to  break  up  one  place  of  abode, 
to  carry  all  his  household  deities  to  a  new 
altar  (to  flit,  as  the  Scotch  idiom  so  pictur- 
esquely has  it)  is  an  abhorrence  to  the  senti- 
mentalist. I  confess  I  am  very  much  of  his 
turn  of  mind  in  this  matter.  Unless  one  has 
been  ill  or  unhappy  in  a  place,  with  what 
misgivings  one  leaves  it!  The  last  stick  of 
furniture  has  been  carried  out,  the  last  picture 
unhung,  the  last  grip  packed  and  ready,  even 
the  cane  and  umbrella  are  strapped  together. 
Then  as  you  take  another  look  through  the 
familiar  rooms,  so  changed  by  the  desolation, 
have  you  not  a  horrible  foreboding  qualm? 
If  ever  the  fluctuating  sentimentalist  in  you 
is  to  get  the  upper  hand,  now  is  his  time.  And 
it  may  need  some  stout  common  bravery  of 
heart  to  keep  him  in  place. 

36 


But  the  more  sane  and  courageous  attitude 
toward  change  accepts  it  as  a  step  in  growth, 
in  development.  The  moral  of  "  The  Cham- 
bered Nautilus "  will  come  home  to  every 
one,  and  we  may  sweeten  the  uses  of  adversity 
by  a  severe  resignation.  The  new  dwelling 
must  often  be  narrower  and  less  commodious 
than  the  old.  But  what  are  the  requisites  we 
look  for  in  seeking  an  abiding-place?  Light, 
air,  sun,  good  soil,  neighbours,  quiet.  And 
still  there  is  one  thing  more  too  often  neg- 
lected —  the  personal  atmosphere  of  the  new 
room  or  the  new  dwelling.  Every  room,  if 
we  would  but  try  to  perceive  it,  has  its  own 
peculiar  atmosphere.  It  afifects  us  pleasantly 
or  unpleasantly,  as  the  case  may  be.  All  its 
past  history,  the  lives  and  passions,  comedies 
and  woes,  aspirations  and  failures,  of  its 
former  occupants  have  all  left  upon  it  traces 
of  their  influence;  and  thereafter  it  is  im- 
possible for  a  new  occupant  to  dwell  there 
without  sharing  in  the  experience  of  the  old 
one.    An  inheritance  of  association  passes  on 

37 


2rtie  :ffvimXfn'^ip  of  ^tt 

with  every  house  to  its  new  tenant,  and  this 
we  cannot  escape.  It  is  useless  to  try  to 
ignore  it;  it  were  wiser  to  recognize  the 
subtle  quality  of  each  room  we  go  into,  to  cul- 
tivate a  sensitiveness  in  that  direction,  and 
never  to  do  violence  to  it  if  we  can  help  our- 
selves. This  would  be  a  novel  consideration 
in  home-making  and  house-hunting.  We 
should  not  look  at  the  locks  and  the  paint 
alone,  nor  consider  the  costliness  of  construc- 
tion; we  should  close  our  eyes  and  feel  the 
atmosphere  of  the  place ;  we  should  try  to  tell 
whether  or  not  we  are  likely  to  be  happy 
there,  whether  or  not  we  are  in  sympathy  with 
the  former  owner,  whether  we  are  to  be  aided 
or  annoyed  by  the  endowment  of  association 
he  has  left  behind  him. 

Of  course,  there  are  our  own  discarded 
impediments  as  well.  If  we  are  to  be  so  par- 
ticular about  the  atmosphere  into  which  we 
move,  we  shall  have  to  see  to  it  that  the  asso- 
ciations we  leave  behind  us  are  not  inimical 


38 


to  the  happiness  of  others,  at  least  that  they 
are  not  evil. 

The  spirit,  too,  has  its  moving-days  and  its 
times  of  house-cleaning,  as  well  as  the  body. 
For  months  and  years  we  may  be  dependents 
on  some  great  spiritual  teacher,  Carlyle,  or 
Arnold,  or  Newman,  or  one  of  the  ancients. 
We  go  in  and  out,  and  carry  on  our  daily  sub- 
sistence, as  tenants  of  his  philosophy,  secure 
in  his  sheltering  thought.  But  some  fine  May 
morning  along  comes  a  gust  of  fancy  and  per- 
suades us  to  move.  We  find  ourselves  dissat- 
isfied with  the  old  lodgings  and  set  out  to  seek 
for  new;  or  perhaps  in  racing  down  some  un- 
expected street  we  have  come  upon  a  domicile 
that  took  our  eye.  Plato  can  detain  us  no 
longer;  we  are  going  to  become  retainers  of 
Aristotle.  So  the  spirit  passes  from  one 
master  to  another,  from  one  abiding-place  to 
the  next  on  the  long  quest  for  a  perfect  dwell- 
ing. None  of  them,  perhaps,  will  be  found 
perfect,  though  none  is  to  be  despised.    Seren- 


39 


ity,  cheer,  encouragement,  valour,  are  to  be 
found  under  many  a  roof  where  we  least  ex- 
pect them.  These  are  the  qualities  to  look  for 
in  the  new  lodging. 


40 


^  Sea-Euw 


It  is  a  New  England  term,  and  you  may 
hear  the  good  Bostonian  any  hot  summer  day 
prophesy  a  sea-turn  with  falling  night.  It 
comes  suddenly,  too,  sometimes  nipping  the 
unwary  and  mauling  the  frail.  You  must  be 
no  weakling  if  you  are  to  live  by  the  sea,  even 
in  July.  She  is  a  rough  nurse,  and  cherishes 
her  strong  sons  by  the  easy  process  of  eliminat- 
ing their  tenderer  brothers.  The  seaboard 
folk  are  hardy,  you  notice.  Those  who  took 
hurt  from  the  rude  play  of  the  elements  have 
been  disposed  of.  They  sleep  well  under  the 
gray  stones. 

I  remember  one  blazing  morning  several 
years  ago.  It  had  been  an  insufferable  night, 
when  you  were  content  to  lounge  about  the 

41 


S^fte  iFrientrsfifii  of  ^vt 

empty  streets  of  Beacon  Hill  and  rest  on  the 
deserted  stone  door-steps.  Indoors  there  was 
nothing  to  breathe.  Up  over  this  city  of 
dreadful  night  rose  the  brassy,  unmitigated 
sun,  till  the  asphalt  sizzled  in  the  steaming  air. 
The  whole  town  went  to  its  office  in  shirt- 
sleeves —  almost.  Will  you  believe  it?  —  be- 
fore noon  the  newsboys  were  crying  extras  of 
the  great  change  of  temperature.  The  east 
wind  was  on  us  like  a  frost.  The  wise  ones 
sought  a  thicker  coat,  but  the  foolish  took 
off  their  hats,  let  the  cold  wind  blow  under 
their  arms,  and  many  of  them  never  needed 
a  coat  again. 

But  for  the  average  being  (or  perhaps  one 
should  say  for  the  normal  —  that  is  somewhat 
better  than  average),  the  sea  is  a  wonderful 
mother.  And  the  dweller  by  the  coast,  wait- 
ing for  the  sea-turn  to  come  in  on  the  wings 
of  the  east  wind,  is  a  mortal  favoured  beyond 
his  fellows.  The  cool  of  the  mountains  is  not 
the  same  thing;  it  is  a  rare  tonic  shock,  stim- 
ulant, thin,  and  keen,  with  nothing  of  the 

42 


motherly  befriending  touch  of  the  sea's 
breath.  For  the  coolness  of  the  hills  seems 
to  be  what  it  really  is  —  the  exhaustion  and 
vanishing  of  all  warmth,  as  if  one  were  left 
to  perish  for  lack  of  the  generous  sun.  In  that 
high,  pure  atmosphere  the  arrowy  rays  come 
down  unobstructed  and  burn  to  the  bone  at 
times,  but  the  moment  our  lord  of  day  is  be- 
hind the  hill  not  a  trace  of  his  presence  re- 
mains, not  a  vestige  of  all  his  vehement 
fervour.  There  may  not  be  a  ghost  of  air 
stirring,  yet  the  chill  is  about  you  on  the 
instant,  and  woollens  are  comfortable.  It  is 
like  being  left  in  a  vault,  for  all  you  are  on 
the  roof  of  the  world. 

The  cool  of  the  sea  is  a  positive  thing. 
In  the  first  place  it  has  a  very  real  savour, 
and  perhaps  that  helps  to  delude  us;  though 
I  fancy  the  feel  of  it  is  different,  too.  Not 
so  dry  as  hill  cold,  its  touch  must  be  softer, 
more  velvety,  with  its  cushion  of  humidity. 
It  is  more  alive,  too.  How  should  it  not  be 
so,  blown  off  the  face  of  the  breathing  sea? 

43 


And  this  wonderful  life,  this  aliveness  of  the 
sea,  it  must  be  which  impresses  the  inlander 
and  the  mountaineer.  It  may  be  that,  as  a 
people,  whose  fathers  have  been  seafarers  and 
maritime  for  hundreds  of  generations,  we  are 
under  the  sway  and  superstition  of  the  ocean. 
One  cannot  be  sure.  And  as  you  or  I  come 
within  sound  of  the  shore  after  a  long  ab- 
sence, perhaps  it  speaks  to  us  as  it  would  not 
speak  to  men  of  an  immemorially  hill-bound 
race.  Certainly  it  has  more  to  say  to  one  than 
the  lofty  homes  of  the  forest  and  the  eternal 
peaks  that  hold  up  the  canopy  of  blue.  And 
you  may  repeat  with  Emerson: 

"  I  heard,  or  seemed  to  hear,  the  chiding  sea 
Say,  Pilgrim,  why  so  late  and  slow  to  come? 
Am  I  not  always  here,  thy  summer  home? 
Is  not  my  voice  thy  music,  morn  and  eve? 
My  breath  thy  healthful  climate  in  the  heats, 
My  touch  thy  antidote,  my  bay  thy  bath?  " 

But  of  all  sea  poetry,  perhaps  no  verses  have 
more  of  the  sea's  true  rhythm,  sombre  and 
noble,  than  Rossetti's  "Sea-Limits:" 

44 


"  Consider  the  sea's  listless  chime ; 
Time's  self  it  is  made  audible  — 
The  murmur  of  the  earth's  own  shell. 
Secret  continuance  sublime 
Is  the  sea's  end.    Our  sight  may  pass 
No  furlong  further.    Since  time  was, 
This  sound  hath  told  the  lapse  of  time." 

There  is  in  these  lines  (is  there  not?)  the 
slow  cadence  of  the  surf,  the  dirging  under- 
tone of  mortal  sorrow.  The  same  note  and 
feeling  are  in  Arnold's  "Dover  Beach:" 

"  Only  from  the  long  line  of  spray, 
Where  the  ebb  meets  the  moon-blanched  sand, 
Listen!     You  hear  the  grating  roar 
Of  pebbles,  which  the  waves  suck  back  and  fling 
At  their  return,  high  up  the  strand, 
Begin  and  cease  and  then  again  begin, 
With    tremulous  cadence  slow,    and   bring 
The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in." 

There  is  an  impressiveness  in  store  for  the 
citizen  who  comes  out  of  his  city  to  confront 
either  the  world  of  ocean  or  the  world  of 
hills;    but  they  will  affect  him  in  different 

45 


^Tfir  iFrftntrsfitii  of  ^vt 

ways.  The  mountains  may  be  your  friend,  but 
the  sea  is  your  lover.  Those  serene  heights 
that  have  stood  unmoved  so  many  countless 
years,  how  they  pique  our  thought  —  the  eter- 
nal repose  unanswering  the  restless  mind.  You 
may  live  w^ith  them  in  respectful  companion- 
ship (if  you  are  rightly  modest  and  patient 
and  lovely-minded),  and  after  many  days  you 
may  come  to  find  that  they  have  impressed 
upon  your  unworthy  self  something  of  their 
own  austere  character,  their  Spartan  forti- 
tude. But  the  sad-voiced  sea  is  not  so  soli- 
tary nor  so  taciturn.  All  her  turbulent,  dis- 
traught life  is  yours  in  a  moment.  She  is  for 
confidences  immediately,  and  never  wearies 
all  day  of  recounting  the  ancient  story  of  her 
perished  pride  and  innumerable  tears.  In  her 
voice  is  the  wistfulness  of  ages,  and,  as  you 
listen,  the  echo  beats  and  reverberates  through 
your  own  human  heart.  You  need  not  be  a 
sentimentalist  to  know  this.  And,  as  I  say, 
one  never  can  know  the  true  truth  about  na- 
ture, one  can  only  know  the  apparent  truth; 

46 


and  that  is  so  largely  a  matter  of  heredity, 
a  matter  of  our  unnumbered  experiences  since 
the  first  sunrise.  Perhaps  if  a  creature  were 
to  come  into  this  earth  endowed  with  senses 
and  perceptions  like  our  own,  yet  without  our 
heritage  of  sentiments  and  our  ageless  endow- 
ment of  emotions,  the  sea  might  seem  to  him 
to  sing  the  gladdest  songs.  But  to  us  who  have 
lived  by  her  side  so  many  thousand  gray  years, 
with  all  their  sea  tragedies,  sea  sorrows,  sea 
changes,  it  cannot  be  so.  We  unconsciously 
find  in  the  face  of  the  earth  a  likeness  of  our- 
selves. And  we  shall  never  in  this  world  be 
other  than  prejudiced  observers.  But,  then, 
our  business  is  not  to  find  gladness  everywhere 
in  nature,  but  to  bring  gladness  everywhere 
with  us. 


47 


^anitas  ^anttatum 


"  Vanity  of  vanities,  saith  the  preacher, 
vanity  of  vanities;  all  is  vanity."  And  what 
you  may  find  to  remark  in  this  well-worn  note 
of  tribulation  is  the  fact  that  it  is  the  saying 
of  a  preacher.  Then  further  we  may  query: 
In  what  other  profession  than  that  of  the 
preacher  will  a  man  come  so  abruptly  upon 
a  sense  of  the  teBdium  vitcB?  So  powerful  is 
the  reflex  and  hypnotic  influence  of  actions, 
the  professional  faultfinder  soon  becomes 
both  victim  and  example  to  his  own  tirades. 
What  is  less  lovely  than  a  scold,  or  more  pit- 
iable than  a  buffoon  confirmed  in  his  buffoon- 
ery? 

Emerson  has  a  pregnant  thought  in  one  of 
his  brief  poems: 

48 


"  *  A  new  commandment,'  said  the  smiling  Muse, 
*  I  give  my  darling  son,  thou  shalt  not  preach '  — 
Luther,  Fox,  Behmen,  Swedenborg,  grew  pale, 
And,  on  the  instant,  rosier  clouds  upbore 
Hafis  and  Shakespeare,  with  their  shining  choirs." 

It  is  the  same  thought  that  has  led  us  by 
common  consensus  of  critical  opinion  to  con- 
demn the  didactic  in  art,  and  prefer  those 
artists  who  stick  to  beauty  pure  and  simple. 
As  good  comfortable  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  has 

it: 

"  If  you  get  simple  beauty  and  naught  else, 
You  get  about  the  best  thing  God  invents." 

Here  is  at  once  a  sanction  for  the  best  and 
the  lowliest  effort  of  art,  the  truth  which  re- 
wards and  satisfies  the  eminent  master,  and 
also  encourages  and  consoles  the  humble 
craftsman.  It  dignifies  not  only  all  art  but 
all  work.  Our  fine  arts  and  handicrafts  are 
perfected  and  ennobled,  when  once  we  treat 
them  with  this  cheery  and  loving  thought 
in  mind.    Whether  the  work  is  an  epic  or 

49 


a  bookbinding  or  the  setting  of  a  precious 
stone,  it  is  all  one  in  importance  if  only  we 
are  careful  to  dignify  the  task  with  love  and 
devotion.  Beauty  calls  for  our  best,  and  only 
by  giving  our  best  in  the  service  of  beauty 
can  we  learn  to  fully  appreciate  the  delight 
that  beauty  offers  us  in  return. 

If  it  is  true  that  every  one  should  take  some 
manly  share  in  doing  the  necessary  work  of 
the  world,  it  is  probably  just  as  true  that  every 
one  should  have  some  active  interest  in  one 
of  the  fine  arts.  To  speak  more  truly,  per- 
haps, there  should  be  no  divorce  between 
work  and  art;  and  I  dare  say  that  not  until 
all  work  can  be  done  with  the  workman's 
whole  heart  can  we  have  the  best  results.  At 
present,  in  a  time  which  we  are  pleased  to 
call  complex,  this  does  not  seem  quite  possible. 
Most  men's  occupations  call  for  a  stress  and 
hurry  that  preclude  the  slow  care  which  art 
demands.  Certainly,  however,  the  artistic 
method  is  to  be  attempted  wherever  it  is  pos- 
sible.   Certainly,  too,  we  shall  be  wise  if  we 

50 


Tanttas  Tanttatum 

make  time  (however  busy  we  may  fancy  our- 
selves) to  take  up  some  form  of  art  or  handi- 
craft on  which  we  may  expend  enthusiasm. 
For  then  we  shall  be  getting  "  simple  beauty 
and  naught  else."  We  shall  need  neither  to 
preach  nor  be  preached  to  any  more.  Even 
the  higher  journalism  will  become  superflu- 
ence.  We  shall  be  so  busy  enjoying  ourselves 
in  our  way,  we  shall  have  no  time  to  spend 
on  the  questionable  task  of  trying  to  improve 
our  neighbours. 

I  am  much  mistaken  if  the  first  preacher 
was  not  the  first  idler,  a  brazen  skulker  from 
the  field  where  his  sedulous  companions  were 
toiling  in  the  sun.  He  probably  went  home 
to  discourse  to  his  appreciative  family  on  the 
proper  methods  of  agriculture  and  the  sin  of 
laziness. 

Vanitas  vanitatum,  et  omnia  vanitas.  And 
served  him  right  that  he  found  it  so!  Had 
he  preached  less,  perhaps,  he  would  not  have 
discovered  vanity  so  quickly.  But  why  is  it 
dangerous  to  preach?    Because  it  is  danger- 

51 


ous  to  do  anything  that  is  not  done  with  the 
whole  being,  and  preaching  is  too  mental  a 
performance.  The  calling  of  the  preacher, 
in  the  pulpit  or  in  the  press,  has  too  little  con- 
nection with  activity,  and  enlists  only  the 
forces  of  mind  and  spirit,  with  too  little  re- 
gard for  deeds.  The  artist  must  not  only  rea- 
son out  his  work,  he  must  love  it  and  execute 
it  himself.  That  piece  of  work  is  ill  done, 
whether  it  be  painting  or  paving,  to  which 
there  did  not  go  a  modicum  of  love  and 
thought  and  energy  together.  No  two  will 
serve  alone.  If  you  will  seek  out  a  successful 
mechanic,  or  sailorman,  or  musician,  or  mule- 
driver,  —  one  who  puts  brains  and  heart  into 
the  work  of  his  hands,  —  I  think  you  will  find 
he  hasn't  much  time  left  for  lamentations. 
He  doesn't  know  what  tedium  vita  means, 
and  he  wouldn't  know  any  better  if  you  trans- 
lated it  for  him.  But  it  never  ought  to  be 
translated.  And  whenever  you  hear  a  man 
going  up  and  down  the  world  reviling  the 
times  continually^—  he  is  a  preacher.     If  he 

52 


Tunituu  TanUatttin 

isn't  a  preacher  by  profession,  he  is  a  preacher 
by  nature,  which  is  worse.  The  habit  of 
preaching  has  taken  hold  upon  him,  and  is 
eating  into  his  vitals.  "  Happy  is  he  who 
has  been  apprenticed  to  trade  and  taught  to 
preach  beauty  with  his  hands,"  says  the  Book 
of  St.  Kavin. 


53 


Cije  Contempomrg  Spbif 


One's  first  impulse  is  to  say  of  the  contem- 
porary spirit:  There  is  the  infallible  guide, 
the  exemplar  of  conduct  and  achievement! 
It  seems  to  us  that  one  thing  needful  is  to  live 
and  vi^ork  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the 
times.  This,  indeed,  is  largely  true.  To  be 
out  of  joint  with  our  own  time  is  to  be  in  bad 
humour  with  ourselves.  Whereas  the  secret 
of  efficiency  is  to  be  well  attuned  with  our- 
selves and  our  surroundings. 

One  easily  remarks  the  great  men  who  have 
been  hands  and  voice  to  the  time  spirit,  and 
one  sees  how  irresistibly  they  have  gone  for- 
ward in  their  cause,  toiling  and  resounding 
through  the  earth.  They  have  been  so  evi- 
dently moved  by  a  power  whose  whole  limits 
they  did  not  themselves  comprehend;    pos- 

54 


sessed  by  a  glorious  idea;  inspired  by  a  splen- 
did thought;  carried  out  of  any  petty  con- 
ception of  life,  or  any  selfish,  self-seeking  aim, 
and  borne  on  the  great  universal  current  of 
progress.  The  mind  feeds  upon  the  events 
and  aspirations  of  its  time  as  a  plant  feeds 
upon  the  soil  and  air  of  its  own  valley.  And 
it  is  a  mark  of  greatness  and  robustness  of 
mind  to  be  able  to  assimilate  wholly  and  read- 
ily the  material  brought  into  contact  with  it. 
Not  to  be  nourished  by  the  sunshine  of  the 
hour  is  to  begin  to  wilt  and  fail. 

And  yet,  in  another  way,  it  is  quite  as  neces- 
sary to  disregard  the  contemporary  spirit,  and 
follow  only  the  teaching  of  the  cosmic  spirit 
—  the  spirit  which  takes  small  heed  of  men 
and  events  and  passing  modes.  It  has  the 
trend  of  larger  progress  in  its  care,  and  dis- 
regards the  smaller  ebb  and  flow  of  local 
currents.  The  contemporary,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  ever  in  dan- 
ger of  being  diverted  and  absorbed  in  the 
trivial  and  the  unnecessary,  the  foolish  and 

55 


2rf|^  :ffvittOiuf^ip  of  ^tt 

the  futile.  The  contemporary  spirit  not  sel- 
dom becomes  jaded  and  debauched  and  in- 
effectual from  a  multiplicity  of  detail  and  a 
diversity  of  interest.  The  contemporary  spirit 
is  very  human,  very  like  our  lesser  selves;  it 
is  by  no  means  always  up  to  its  better  self; 
it  often  fails  of  its  ideal;  is  hasty  and  short- 
sighted and  frivolous.  It  is,  really,  nothing 
but  the  force  of  average  humanity  at  any  one 
time,  realizing  itself  in  its  own  creations. 

The  uncontemporary  spirit,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  power  of  humanity's  better  self 
accomplishing  large  purposes,  fostering  lofty 
aims,  keeping  in  sight  pure  ideals,  and  pon- 
dering on  the  past  and  the  future  while  it 
still  must  toil  in  the  present  day.  It  cares 
little  for  reward,  save  that  of  its  own  appro- 
bation; does  not  hesitate  nor  falter  nor  com- 
promise; but  is  frank  and  insistent  and  of 
large  endurance. 

It  is  the  uncontemporary  spirit  that  is  the 
genius  of  discovery  and  art  and  invention. 
It  is  the  devoted  imaginers  who  have  been  the 

56 


benefactors  of  their  race.  The  contemporary 
spirit  is  self-seeking,  self-satisfied,  self-suffi- 
cient; the  great  upholder  of  things  as  they 
are,  it  sits  stolid  and  somnolent  in  the  pew 
corner.  It  scofifs  at  liberty,  praises  antiquity, 
and  prophesies  ruin. 

The  contemporary  spirit  always  has  an  eye 
to  the  main  chance;  it  feathers  the  nest,  pro- 
vides the  dower,  lays  by  for  a  rainy  day,  lives 
in  the  passing  hour,  and  dies  eternally,  for 
all  we  know  to  the  contrary.  Of  what  service, 
then,  are  the  contemporary  and  the  uncon- 
temporary  spirit  to  be  to  the  artist?  They 
must  serve  him,  I  fancy,  very  much  as  he  is 
served  by  his  dual  self,  with  the  wisdom  of 
the  serpent  and  the  wisdom  of  the  dove. 
There  will  always  be  active  within  him  the 
conflicting,  yet  parallel,  desires  —  the  inclina- 
tion to  adapt  vague,  unrealizable  dreams  to 
the  comprehension  and  utility  of  his  time,  and 
the  stubborn  disinclination  to  alter  his  ideal 
for  any  use  whatever. 

Yet  we  must  remember  that  all  art,  like 
57 


life  itself,  is  a  compromise  —  a  compromise 
between  what  we  would  and  what  we  can. 
On  the  one  hand  is  the  artist's  mind,  to  which 
come  fancies,  thoughts,  pictures,  ideas,  half- 
comprehended  by  himself,  never  yet  articu- 
lated or  declared  for  others,  and  unimagined 
by  the  great  world  of  his  fellows  to  whom  he 
would  address  himself;  on  the  other  hand  is 
that  stubborn  world  of  media,  the  rough  ma- 
terial of  sounds  and  colours,  which  is  to  be 
made  plastic  by  the  artist's  hands,  which  is 
to  be  made  to  convey  his  meaning.  How  is 
he  to  express  to  others  the  new  thing,  which 
as  yet  he  can  hardly  define  to  himself?  Evi- 
dently he  must  compromise  between  perfect 
faithfulness  to  the  vision  and  intelligibility  ta 
his  auditors.  He  must  be  content  to  convey 
only  a  part  of  his  own  impression  in  order 
that  his  expression  of  it  may  pass  on  to  others. 
And  here  is  always  the  artist's  dilemma,  and 
his  need  for  self-surrender.  Not  what  he 
would  say,  but  what  he  can  say,  must  still 
suffice  him.    So  to  lay  the  colour  that  it  may 

58 


enshrine  his  new  dream  of  beauty,  yet  retain 
so  much  of  its  old  disposition  that  men  be- 
holding will  recognize  and  comprehend  it 
still ;  so  to  dispose  and  array  these  old  words 
as  to  make  them  embody  a  shade  of  meaning, 
an  influence,  an  infusion,  unguessed  before, 
yet  at  the  same  time  not  to  wrench  or  distort 
them  from  their  common  acceptation  —  to  use 
them  with  great  freedom  and  novelty,  yet  not 
to  startle  their  timorous  inheritors. 

To  be  fresh,  to  be  original,  to  be  conclusive, 
to  be  untrite  and  compelling,  yet  to  be  allur- 
ing and  convincing  and  seductive  also;  to 
astonish  and  overcome  and  carry  wholly 
away,  yet  never  to  antagonize  nor  offend  — 
there  is  a  task  for  a  summer's  day.  And  al- 
ways while  the  contemporary  wisdom  of  the 
serpent  is  teaching  the  artist  patience  and 
tolerance,  and  to  be  contented  with  little,  the 
uncontemporary  wisdom  of  the  dove  is  bid- 
ding him  contend  for  the  manifestation  of 
his  best  self,  for  the  uncompromising  realiza- 
tion of  the  prophecy  and  the  dream. 

59 


iiorticultttte 


The  lover  of  rose-gardens  doubtless  is 
master  of  a  blameless  joy.  He  is  a  leisurist 
first  of  ail,  delighting  in  the  quiet  life  and 
silently  acquiescing  in  the  great  law  of  the 
unimportance  of  the  individual.  He  has  his 
pleasure  of  life  behind  his  garden  walls,  in 
sunshine  and  seclusion,  while  the  pageant  of 
the  world  goes  by  with  all  its  drums  and 
pennons.  With  shouts  and  cheers  and  martial 
strains  the  concourse  is  parading  down  the 
road;  but  your  rose  lover  only  sees  the  dust, 
only  feels  the  confusion,  and  turns  to  his 
flower-beds  with  a  happy  heart.  Let  others 
do  what  they  will,  his  soul  prefers  peace  and 
the  quietude  of  his  own  small  plot  of  earth. 

60 


I^ovtitnltnvt 

Yet  he  is  no  idler.  With  diligence  he  tends 
his  beloved  companions  —  trims  and  waters, 
shelters  and  weeds,  with  untiring  zest.  And 
all  his  reward  is  beauty,  the  generous  respon- 
sive beauty  of  the  earth  —  the  soul  of  the 
ground  made  visible  in  roses.  At  nightfall, 
I  doubt  not,  he  has  dreams  of  his  own.  In 
the  silent  silver  moonlight,  sifting  through  the 
tall  elms,  he  broods  among  his  sumptuous 
beauties  slumbering  on  their  stalks.  He  de- 
vises new  varieties  to  be  evolved  in  time ;  he 
lays  out  new  domains  for  crimson  favourites, 
and  brings  wild  corners  under  cultivation  for 
his  lovely  friends.  His  mind  is  not  idle,  you 
may  be  sure,  as  he  paces  to  and  fro  in  the 
warm  air  under  the  stars.  He  is  an  artist  and 
a  labourer  in  one;  to  the  labourer's  rewards 
of  careless  health  and  freedom  of  mind,  he 
adds  the  artist's  joy. 

The  elements  are  kind  to  the  lover  of  flow- 
ers; sun  and  rain  and  air  conspire  to  second 
the  toil  of  his  hand ;   and  while  he  sleeps  his 


6i 


designs  are  being  accomplished.     Of  what 
other  craft  can  so  much  be  said? 

It  was  not  really  the  compensations  of  gar- 
dening, however,  that  I  had  in  mind  when  I 
began  these  notes  this  morning,  but  the  pleas- 
ures and  rewards  of  a  different  sort  of  culture, 
which  gardening  only  symbolizes.  I  mean,  of 
course,  the  culture  of  ourselves.  For  every 
one  of  us  is  a  garden.  I  may  be  full  of  nettles 
and  pigweed;  you  may  be  full  of  lilies  and 
lavender.  You  may  have  a  rich,  deep  soil; 
mine  may  be  sandy  and  dry.  You  may  bask 
toward  the  south  in  the  sun  of  circumstance, 
while  I  have  to  front  the  north  of  dreary  ad- 
versity. Still,  here  we  are  awaiting  the  gar- 
dener's care.  Let  us  go  in  and  cultivate  our- 
selves. For,  if  you  think  we  can  lie  here  in 
the  weather  waiting  for  some  fabulous  divine 
gardener  to  come  along  and  do  all  the  weed- 
ing, and  digging,  and  sowing,  and  scuffling 
for  us,  while  we  have  only  to  bloom  and  ab- 
sorb moisture,  you  are  sadly  in  error.  There 
is  no  gardener  but  oneself.     And  you  may 

62 


?i^ott(cttltttte 

construct  a  fine  esoteric  poem  on  the  subject^ 
concluding  with  the  line: 

"  Myself  the  weeder  and  the  weed." 

This  is  a  mystery,  but  it  is  sober  truth,  too. 
And  the  garden  in  which  we  are  placed  may 
be  divided,  for  convenience,  into  two  or  three 
parts.  There  is  the  garden  of  the  mind,  for 
instance,  which  we  are  sent  to  college  to  culti- 
vate. And  there  is  the  garden  of  the  body, 
which  we  too  often  shamefully  neglect.  In- 
deed, some  misguided  folk  would  have  you 
believe  that  the  one  is  a  rose-garden,  while 
the  other  is  only  a  despised  vegetable  patch. 
But  this  is  not  true,  as  every  man  who  has 
tried  faithfully  to  cultivate  his  body  knows. 
If  you  have  never  made  the  attempt,  why 
not  take  up  the  care  of  your  body  for  one 
year.  Find  where  it  needs  attention.  Lavish 
upon  it  all  the  thoughtful  consideration  you 
would  give  to  the  culture  of  your  mind.  Tend 
it  with  patience,  enrich  it  with  understand- 
ing.   Work  with  all  the  science  and  enthusi- 

63 


asm  of  a  true  horticulturist.  And  watch  for 
the  flowers  of  grace  and  strength  to  grow  and 
prosper  under  your  care. 

Very  likely  your  body  is  sadly  neglected. 
You  must  overlook  the  whole  ground,  first 
of  all,  to  see  where  there  is  the  greatest  need 
of  attention.  You  will  probably  have  to  have 
some  advice  at  first,  for  an  instinct  for  per- 
fection is  apt  to  be  blunted  from  long  disuse. 
But,  once  aroused,  it  will  soon  revive  to  its 
normal  function;  you  will  begin  to  know 
intuitively  what  foods  are  good,  for  instance, 
and  what  exercises  most  helpful. 

If  your  wrist  is  stiflF  and  your  arm  unlimber, 
take  some  exercises  that  will  correct  the  fault. 
Then  diligently  practise  that  gymnastic,  and 
watch  the  results.  You  will  begin  to  see  per- 
fection of  arm  movement  and  wrist  motion 
gradually  spring  into  life  like  fair,  unfolding 
blossoms.  You  will  be  capable  of  beauties  of 
graceful  exertion  which  you  never  dreamed 
you  could  possess. 

If  your  voice  is  weak  and  unmusical,  learn 

64 


|l^ott(ettUtttr 

to  breathe;  then  learn  to  produce  tones;  then 
learn  the  right  conformity  of  the  mouth  for 
the  production  of  the  legitimate  sounds  of 
speech;  then  learn  to  add  expression.  You 
will  find  you  have  acquired  a  beautiful  torso 
and  a  fine  carriage,  better  possessions  than  we 
often  buy. 

And  so  on  through  all  the  muscles  and 
members ;  let  none  be  neglected,  for  none  are 
despicable  or  useless,  and  all  are  needed  for 
the  final  perfection.  Your  great  reward  will 
come,  when  (long  after  you  have  cast  off  all 
harmful  and  absurd  restrictions  of  fashion) 
your  culture  begins  to  show  itself  in  perfect 
mobility  and  poise,  and  when,  as  a  last  test  of 
normal  being,  you  begin  to  be  aware  of  the 
rhythms  of  your  own  body.  Most  of  us  pass 
our  lives  without  ever  being  once  awake  to  this 
sense  of  divine  joy,  this  rapture  of  musical 
motion.  And  yet  rhythmic  mobility  is  a 
source  of  happiness,  a  means  of  health  and 
a  magical  creator  of  beauty. 

It  cannot  surely  be  very  long  before  we 

65 


2rfte  iFtUntrsHiji  of  ^vt 

amend  our  standards  of  education,  so  as  to 
place  the  body  on  an  equal  footing  with  the 
mind.  We  are  suffering  for  our  neglect.  If 
we  make  body  culture  as  important  as  mental 
and  spiritual  culture,  we  should  be  much  hap- 
pier, for  we  should  be  much  better  balanced 
and  much  more  normal.  All  the  attention 
we  have  come  to  give  to  sports  and  out-of-door 
pastimes  is  itself  evidence  of  our  instinctive 
tendency  to  better  things,  to  a  completer  cul- 
ture; and  still  we  are  only  beginning  to  learn 
the  possibilities  of  bodily  culture,  and  its  im- 
perative necessity  as  a  factor  in  human  per- 
fection. 


66 


Speecj)^  Culture  awtr 


The  relation  between  speech-culture  and 
literature  may  not  be  apparent  at  first  glance. 
Not  only  does  it  exist,  however,  but  it  is  fun- 
damental and  therefore  of  prime  importance. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  position  of  lit- 
erature among  the  fine  arts,  and  some  of  the 
qualities  inherent  in  literature  which  make 
it  a  fine  art. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  the  fine  arts?  In 
what  do  they  consist?  What  characteristics 
have  they  In  common  by  which  we  may  dis- 
tinguish them?  We  may  say  theoretically 
that  art  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
result  of  man's  attempt  to  give  expression  to 

67 


8ri|f  ffvimXft^'fyip  of  ^tt 

his  thoughts,  his  aspirations,  his  hopes  and 
fears,   in   forms   of   beauty.     We   may   say, 
briefly,  that  art  is  the  manifestation  of  the 
^^'    human  spirit.     But  everything  we  do  is  to 
^LL^    ?i^'  some  extent  expressive.    Our  acts,  our  looks, 
jffjr '  j^'    our  gestures,  the  tones  of  our  voice,  may  all 
^/Ct»^f  '  be  said  to  be  expressive  in  that  they  convey 

to  others  some  impression  about  ourselves. 
An  advertising  sign  on  the  fence  is  a  form 
of  expression,  in  that  it  serves  to  convey  in- 
formation from  the  proprietor  to  the  public. 
Indeed,  nothing  that  man  does  can  be  wholly 
without  expression.  How,  therefore,  can  we 
distinguish  these  forms  of  expression  which 
are  worthy  to  be  termed  the  fine  arts? 

If  I  say  to  you  that  a  plus  h  equals  c,  or  that 

2  plus  2  equals  4,  I  am  giving  expression  to 

^       a^  statement  which  appeals  at  once  to  your 

P'(^  reason.    It  requires  only  your  mind  to  appre- 

TT^  ciate  the  information.     You  don't  care  any- 

^   thing  about  it.    But  if  I  say,  "  the  sailor  and 

r  V^'  the  hunter  have  come  home,"  that  piece  of 

information  begins  to  interest  you.    I  begin 

68 


^'^"•'A*.^, 


^    <//«C^i-^^i*»vA  fitsJ^  <ix^  ^i»,f  t^TL^M.fK'  Tm   U/ft^  ^  /ts-    " 

to  touch  upon  your  emotions.  You  fancy 
there  is  to  be  more  of  the  story;  you  like  the 
sailor  better  than  the  hunter;  or  perhaps  you 
wish  that  the  hunter  had  returned  alone;  at 
all  events,  your  sympathy  is  awake,  and  await- 
ing the  development  of  the  story.  It  is  no 
longer  a  pure  and  simple  statement  of  fact, 
such  as  we  had  at  first  in  2  plus  2  equals  4. 
Now,  if  I  go  further  and  quote  you  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson's  line:  ^        > 

"  Home  is  the  sailor,  home  from  sea,  ^'"♦^^^^ 

And  the  hunter  come  from  the  hill,"  ^^^^*^  -S^fO. 

What  is  the  result?    We  not  only  have  our     n     ^ 
mind  informed  as  before;   we  not  only  have  ^  ^t^^^^^^JcL 
our  emotions  enlisted  as  before;  we  have  our3-/2Li*^_ 
senses  appealed  to  as  well.     The  statement 
already  had  mental   and  spiritual   qualities, 
and  now  there  has  been  added  to  these  a  phys- 
ical  quality,   the  quality  of  beauty.     These 
three    qualities    of    truth,    spirituality,    and 
beauty  are  the  essential  characteristics  of  all 
the  fine  arts.  And  among  all  the  achievements 
"  69 


i 


x^ 


and  activities  of  mankind,  no  form  of  expres- 
sion can  be  classed  as  a  fine  art  unless  each 
of  these  qualities  is  present.    And,  also,  any 
ip.       industry  may  at  any  moment  rise  to  the  height 
il^^ji        of  a  fine  art  if  the  workman  is  given  sufficient 
y^*J^  freedom  and  has  sufficient  talent  or  genius. 
^  j_>  i^J-    In  that  case  he  will  impress  upon  the  work 
'    A-'^         something  of  his  own  personality;    he  will 
lP>^  ^'  make  it  expressive  of  himself;    he  will  put 

into  his  work  reason  and  love  and  beauty. 
He  will  make  it  appeal  to  our  mind,  our 
spirit  and  our  aesthetic  sense. 

You  see,  then,  that  these  three  distinguished 

characteristics  of  art  are  representative  of  the 

threefold  nature  of  the  artist.    And  these  three 

I  qualities,  inherent  in  every  work  of  art,  im- 

J.X     J  planted  there  by  its  human  creator,  a  reflected 

ff^  J  image  of  himself,  will  in  turn  appeal  to  the 

j  living  trinity  within  ourselves.     All  art  has 

cha^ip:    it  has  what  Rossetti  called  funda- 

'     mental  brain  work;   it  has  emotion.    To  say 

the  same  thing  in  another  way,  art  must  make 

us  satisfied  and  glad  and  content;    it  must 

{a .  ~  70 


Id^ 


^^^/^ 


give  us  something  to  think  about,  something 
... ..  _        _  ..  ^,^ 

to  love,  and  something  to  recall  with  a  thrill 
of  pleasure. 

It  is  the  province  of  art,  of  every  art  and^ 
every  piece  of  art,  to  influence  us  in  these  three 
ways.    And  any  artist  whose  work  is  lacking 
in  any  one  of  those  directions  is  in  so  far  a 
limited  and  imperfect  creator. 

Art,  then,  is  the  result  of  man's  attempt 
to  express  himself  adequately,  with  intelli- 
gence, with  power  and  with  charm.  But 
when  we  say  that  art  is  the  embodiment  of 
expression,  that  does  not  mean  that  the  ex- 
pression is  given  necessarily  a  permanent 
form.  Some  of  the  arts,  such  as  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture,  are  dependent  on 
materials  for  their  embodiment.  But  their 
greater  or  less  permanence  has  nothing  to  do 
with  their  essential  qualities.  It  would  not 
detract  in  the  least  from  the  excellence  of  a 
painting  if  it  were  destroyed  the  minute  it 
was  finished.  Other  arts,  again,  like  music 
and  dancing  and  acting,  are  merely  instan- 

71 


n  ^^       taneous,  and  have  no  permanence  whatever; 

.tpJ^     they  perish  more  quickly  than  the  impulse 

ffj-'K^J.'^      which  produced  them,  except  in  so  far  as  they 

K   J^'^^       can  be  preserved  in  the  memory  and  repro- 

nyt'^'  .         duced  by  imitation. 

/5*^'''  Now,    in   order   to   arrest  the   perishable 

j^''  beauty   of    these    instantaneous    arts,    certain 

L-^h^*^         mechanical    inventions    have    been    devised 

^      a         from  time  to  time  —  the  invention  of  writing, 

Ij^^K        of   printing,   of    photography,   for   example. 

C'^^^^*'        And  by  their  useful  means  creations  of  art, 

^  ^i     which  must  otherwise  be  lost  to  the  world, 

1^  jfi.'^Lh-  may  be  preserved  and  transmitted  and  mul- 

fo  jr»^-}i     tiplied  for  the  enjoyment  of  thousands.    And 

^V^^ti^^      the  point  I  wish  to  emphasize  is,  that  music 

</.  \,     ^  '  .^"d  literature  are  in  precisely  the  same  case 

J^" t«'^  h}  this  respect.    Literature,  like  music,  is  de- 

<5*^'''         pendent  on  writing  only  as  a  means  for  Its 

''Ij^"      preservation.     All  its  essential  qualities,  like 


}\        those  of  music,  are  perceived  only  when  it 
«■•;        Is   reproduced   as  modified  sound.     And   In 


Stevenson's  lines,  which  we  quoted  a  moment 
/Sj^""^'  J,^     ago,  you  remember  that  we  found  he  had 


taken  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  which  con-  , 

tained  truth  and  interest,  and  had  raised  it  to  ,  ^' 
the  dignity  of  poetry,  by  adding  a  single  qual-  a*^*^ 
ity  —  the  quality  of  beauty.  His  genius  and 
knowledge  of  English  gave  him  the  power  of 
arranging  a  few  words  so  that  they  should 
not  only  interest  us  as  they  had  done  before, 
but  should  enthral  us  with  a  new  and  added 
charm.  That  charm  was  the  charm  of  sound. 
Or  to  take  another  example,  take  this  sen- 
tence, "  So,  among  the  mountains  by  the  win- 
ter sea,  the  sound  of  battle  rolled  all  day 
long."  There  is  a  statement  of  fact,  a  bit  of 
expression,  which  conveys  information  and 
which  has  interest.  But  now  listen  to  the 
same  words  when  Tennyson  has  added  beauty 
to  their  thought  and  emotion:  (ZA^o-^l-^Suxj^ 

"  So  all  day  long  the  sound  of  battle  rolled 
Among  the  mountains  by  the  winter  sea." 

This  new  beauty  is  purely  a  beauty  of 
sound.  Tennyson's  taste  as  an  artist  led  him 
to  perceive,  when  these  sixteen  words  were 

73 


so    arranged    as    to    produce    their    greatest 
charm,  their  maximum  effect  upon  us. 

I  must  conclude,  therefore,  that  poetry,  or 

literature,  is  an  oral  art.     And  the  aspect  of 

it,  which  appeals  to  an  aesthetic  sense,  does  so, 

_^  and  can  only  do  so,  through  the  harmonious 

arrangement  of  melodious  words. 

If  I   repeat,  then,  that  it  is  the  inherent 
rp^K  characteristic  of  art  to  be  beautiful  and  to 

^    >*  f         appeal  to  our  sense  of  beauty,  and,  further- 
J  ^,  more,  that  the  only  way  literature  has  of  ful- 

aJ^  filling  this  condition  and  becoming  a  fine  art 

P     ;,  is  by  the  beauty  of  the  spoken  word,  I  think 

^  we  may  very  safely  conclude  that  any  com- 

position which  fails  in  this  test  fails  of  being 
literature. 

And  further,  this  relation  between  litera- 
ture and  speech  is  not  only  a  fundamental  one, 
;   but  its  maintenance  must  have  an  important 
,    /^  t    effect.    Literature  is,  as  it  were,  only  a  glori- 
)J*\\  ^         fied  form  of  speech,  produced  with  greater 
nf-'^  care  and  skill  and  forethought.    The  litera- 

ture of  a  nation  is  the  quintessence^^f  Ae 

74 


speech  of  the  nation.    Think  for  a  moment 
what  sometimes  happens  when  any  commu- 
nity becomes  detached  from  the  current  of   j(^ 
civilization ;    when  it  becomes  isolated  and 
narrow  and  self-centred.     It  often  happens  ^ 

that  these  impoverished  communities  deteri- 
orate rapidly,  and  that  they  show  mental 
weakness,  moral  depravity,  physical  debase- 
ment. Had  their  speech  become  as  corrupt 
and  inefficient  as  themselves,  you  would  not 
have  expected  literature  from  such  a  people. 
On  the  other  hand,  think  of  the  case  of  those 
nations  which  have  reached  a  high  grade  of 
civilization  in  the  world's  history.  They  have 
always  been  nations  which  have  bequeathed 
to  us  valuable  and  significant  treasures  of 
literature  and  the  plastic  arts.  Indeed,  we  ^^  ^^  ' 
have  no  means  of  measuring  the  greatness  of  ^,  ^  r 
a  people  except  by  the  fine  arts  it  encourages  ^ 

and  produces.  For  the  fine  arts,  as  we  said, 
are  only  the  embodiment  of  man's  aspirations 
and  ideals.  The  surpassing  literature  of 
Greece  and  Rome  is  a  true  exponent  of  the 

75 


©fie  iFtUn^fiiliHi  of  ^tt 

degree  of  civilization  at  which  they  had  ar- 
rived. And  it  is,  too,  simply  a  record  of  their 
speech.  It  were  surely  impossible  that  Greek 
poetry  and  Greek  prose  should  exhibit  such 
^    l^  qualities  of  perfection  as  they  do,  unless  the 

i^*^  ^      Greek  tongue  had  first  attained  those  same 
/J^'*  perfect  characteristics,  those  traits  of  power 

and  beauty  and  adequateness  of  expression. 

If  we  do  not  admit  this  and  still  profess 
to  think  there  is  no  relation  between  speech 
and  literature,  we  are  driven  by  the  force  of 
logic  to  admit  that  Shakespeare's  plays  might 
quite  well  have  been  written  by  some  wise  old 
Chinese  philosopher,  who  was  a  deaf  mute 
and  spent  his  whole  life  in  a  hermit's  cell. 
If  I  could  acquire  a  knowledge  and  use  of 
•^  language  such  as  Stevenson  possessed,  such 
fiu^  as  two  or  three  people  of  my  acquaintance 

^  possess;   if  I  could  know  the  English  tongue 

^  with  all  its  shades  of  meaning  and  subtle  as- 

sociation; if  I  could  use  it  with  readiness, 
with  exactness,  with  copiousness,  with  feeling; 
and  if,  in  addition  to  this,  I  could  acquire  a 

76 


4i 


beautiful  and  well-controlled  voice,  such  as 
one  occasionally  hears,  so  that  after  I  knew 
my  words  I  could  make  use  of  them,  I  should 
in  that  case  not  only  be  a  better  educated  man, 
but  I  should  have  greater  power,  I  should 
have  given  myself  the  rudiments  of  a  literary 
education  (such  as  is  nowhere  provided  in  our 
schools  or  colleges),  and  I  should  have  fitted 
myself  as  a  citizen  to  be  one  of  that  intelli- 
gently critical  public  without  which  the  fine 
arts  cannot  flourish,  cannot,  indeed,  exist. 
Moreover,  I  could  fit  myself  to  be  an  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic,  though  obscure,  appre- 
ciator  of  the  art  of  literature  in  no  other  way 
than  by  these  two  means. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  with  you, 
but  I  cannot  recall  more  than  half  a  dozen 
people  among  those  I  have  ever  known  who 
possessed  this  happy  degree  and  kind  of  cul- 
ture. If,  however,  instead  of  being  so  rare, 
speech  culture  were  made  prevalent;  if  such 
knowledge  and  power  of  expression  could  be 
made  almost  universal,  consider  what  a  public 

77 


we  should  have!  And  think  how  impossible 
a  great  mass  of  our  contemporary  litera- 
ture, with  its  barbarous  offences  against  good 
taste,  its  ruthless  disregard  of  beauty,  its  atroc- 
ities against  English  speech  —  think  how  im- 
possible such  work  would  be.  Do  you  think 
that  a  wide-spread  culture  of  our  own  lan- 
guage, a  national  instinct  for  exact,  flexible, 
and  pleasing  speech,  would  have  no  influence 
upon  our  literature?  I  find  it  difficult  to 
imagine  a  perfected  standard  of  diction  and 
^  literary  mediocrity  existing  in  the  same  na- 
tion at  the  same  time. 

As  bearing  directly  on  the  question,  allow 
me  to  quote  a  fragmentary  poem  by  Richard 
Hovey,  entitled: 

"THE  GIFT  OF  ART 

"  I  dreamed  that  a  child  was  born ;  and  at  his  birth 
The  Angel  of  the  Word  stood  by  the  hearth 
And  spake  to  her  that  bore  him :    *  Look  without ! 
Behold  the  beauty  of  the  Day,  the  shout 
Of  colour  to  glad  colour,  rocks  and  trees 
And  sun  and  sea  and  wind  and  sky !    All  these 

78 


Are  God's  expression,  art-work  of  His  hand, 

Which  men  must  love  ere  they  may  understand, 

By  which  alone  He  speaks  till  they  have  grace 

To  hear  His  voice  and  look  upon  His  face. 

For  first  and  last  of  all  things  in  the  heart 

Of  God  as  man  the  glory  is  of  art. 

What  gift  could  God  bestow  or  man  beseech 

Save  spirit  unto  spirit  uttered  speech? 

Wisdom  were  not,  for  God  Himself  could  find 

No  way  to  reach  the  unresponsive  mind, 

Sweet  Love  were  dead,  and  all  the  crowded  skies 

A  loneliness  and  not  a  Paradise. 

Teach  the  child  language,  mother.  .  .  .'  " 

This,  then,  is  the  very  brief  statement  of 
the  bearing  of  speech  culture  upon  literature, 
as  it  appears  to  me;  and  our  investigation 
closes  here.  In  conclusion,  however,  I  should 
like  to  guard  against  the  implication  of  an 
overestimate  of  the  value  of  the  fine  arts  and 
their  importance  in  life.  If  one  insists  on  the 
vital  necessity  for  education  in  expression,  it 
is  not  merely  to  the  end  that  the  fine  arts  may 
flourish.  For  though  the  fine  arts  are  lovely 
and  desirable  in  themselves,  they  indicate  the 


:> 


79  y 


existence  of  something  even  more  wonderful 
and  desirable  —  they  indicate  the  presence  of 
an  instinct  for  truth,  an  instinct  for  goodness, 
and  an  instinct  for  beauty  in  the  people  which 
produced  them.  They  reveal,  as  I  think  we 
said  before,  the  high  degree  of  civilization 
which  that  people  had  been  fortunate  enough 
to  reach. 

If  we  give  ourselves  to  the  culture  of  ex- 
pression, we  shall  undoubtedly  have  greater 
art  as  a  result  of  that  education.  But  its  best 
result  would  be  the  effect  upon  ourselves; 
for  in  the  process  of  that  culture,  in  the  calling 
forth  of  the  capacities  which  reveal  them- 
selves in  art,  we  shall  be  developing  those 
powers  which  alone  enlighten  and  ennoble  a 
nation. 


80 


0n  Ijetnfl  Coherent 


There  is  a  coherence  of  bodily  action,  just 
as  there  is  a  coherence  of  speech.  And  the 
one  is  no  less  essential  than  the  other,  either 
for  expressing  our  thoughts  or  accomplishing 
our  wishes. 

We  commonly  speak  of  a  man's  utterances 
being  incoherent,  meaning  by  that  that  they 
are  unintelligible  or  inarticulate.  In  the  rad- 
ical sense  of  the  word,  of  course,  we  mean 
that  the  man's  speech  does  not  cohere,  does 
not  "  hang  together,"  as  we  say.  One  part 
of  it  has  no  logical  relation  with  another  part. 

So  In  bodily  action ;  many  of  us  are  afflicted 
with  an  incoherency  of  motion,  and  do  not 
relate  the  diflPerent  movements  or  acts  of  the 
body.    One  man  has  an  excellent  chest  devel- 

8i 


opment  and  strong  arms,  with  a  miserable 
pair  of  legs.  Another  has  good  legs  and  feet, 
but  a  weakly  upper  body;  a  third,  all  arms 
and  no  back;  a  fourth,  all  back  and  no  arms. 
And  these  defects  our  physical  training  (un- 
der the  evil  influence  of  college  and  profes- 
sional athletics)  does  little  to  help.  True,  the 
best  teachers  of  physical  education  are  wholly 
against  the  sort  of  training  fostered  by  com- 
petition, intercollegiate  and  international,  but 
public  sentiment  is  too  strong  for  them.  The 
men  want  the  prizes  and  the  victory  more  than 
they  want  wholesome,  all-round  development. 
So  they  continue  to  overexercise  their  strong 
muscles  and  neglect  their  weak  ones.  As  a 
consequence,  they  lack  coherence  of  strength. 
But  there  is  a  worse  defect,  the  result  of 
competitive  emulation,  and  that  is  incoherence 
of  action.  Even  when  a  man  is  well  developed, 
he  is  very  often  without  prompt  and  intelli- 
gent coherence  of  action.  He  has  no  coordi- 
nation ;  does  not  act  as  a  single  being,  with  his 
will  and  mind  and  muscles  at  once.    If  there 

82 


0n  "BtitiQ  eofiftent 

is  a  step  to  be  taken,  he  steps  with  his  leg 
alone,  the  rest  of  his  body  having  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  If  anything  is  to  be  lifted  from  a 
shelf,  he  allows  his  hand  and  arm  to  do  it, 
while  his  body  is  almost  inert.  You  perceive 
at  once  that  he  is  not  an  alert,  complete  indi- 
vidual, thoroughly  vitalized  from  top  to  toe, 
but  rather  a  bundle  of  arms  and  legs  and 
fingers,  all  equally  strong,  but  all  working  at 
haphazard,  under  separate  impulses.  There 
seems  to  be  no  central  determination,  no  in- 
dwelling and  directing  purpose.  The  man 
has  no  coherence  of  muscular  action. 

If  this  truth  is  not  obvious  in  others,  it 
becomes  quite  clear,  I  think,  when  we  observe 
ourselves,  and  if  we  note  the  different  ways 
of  doing  things.  And  it  is  easy,  with  a  little 
care  and  training,  to  note  the  improvement 
in  ourselves  in  this  matter  of  physical  coor- 
dination. It  is  a  means  of  economy  of  force 
and  increase  of  power  not  to  be  overlooked. 
jTo  cultivate  physical  coherence  implies,  too, 
Ithe  culture  of  more  than  bodily  powers.     It 

83 


//^ 


STfje  JfvitnXfu'^ip  of  ^vt 

implies  the  culture  of  the  powers  of  spirit  and 
mind  as  well.     For  we  cannot  improve  our 
physique,  in  strength,  in  promptness,  in  skill, 
without  necessarily  improving  our  faculties  of 
.  ji  determination  and  judgment  at  the  same  time. 
yi\r    f      You  may  be  quite  sure  that  a  man  of  slov- 
enly, shambling  appearance  has  a  slovenly, 
-^'^  ^^     careless  character;  that  a  sturdy  and  trim  fig- 
^lJ^\^      ure  houses  a  reliable  being,  and  so  forth.  This, 
kJ^   y         of  course,  we  all  commonly  recognize.     But 
we  fail,  I  think,  to  act  on  the  truth.    We  fail 
to  make  the  further  deduction,  which  is  so 
obvious,  that,  since  person  and  personality  are 
-^       so  closely  related,  we  can  educate  the  one  by 
0ji^^  means  of  the  other.    Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 

J  this  is  the  very  thing  we  can  do  in  physical 

i^y         training.     By  training  the  person   in  better 
^'    "^  modes  of  motion  and  carriage   and  speech, 

we  educate  the  personality  behind  it,  and  give 
that  personality  new  endowments  of  gracious- 
ness  and  beauty  and  charm. 

This  better  education  of  the  individual,  in- 
deed, should  constitute  the  aim  of  physical 

84 


training.  The  mere  culture  of  muscularity 
or  bodily  power  alone  is  not  enough.  And 
as  long  as  athletics  remain  the  sole  end  and 
aim  of  gymnastics,  just  so  long  will  they  re- 
main in  the  inferior  position  they  now  hold. 
But  gymnastics  in  education  are  as  important 
as  philosophy,  or  languages,  or  science,  or  the 
fine  arts.  And  under  wise  provision,  they 
must  come  to  hold  a  more  and  more  important 
position  in  all  curricula  of  training  of  the 
young. 

The  range  of  physical  culture  is  not  lim- 
ited, but  almost  illimitable ;  and  we  are  only 
on  the  threshold  of  our  knowledge  in  regard 
to  it.  Physical  culture  engenders  and  devel- 
ops not  only  physical  coherence,  but  personal 
coherence,  personal  poise  and  power.  It 
helps  forward  that  perfection  of  the  character 
for  which  we  are  all  striving,  and  helps  it  as 
nothing  else  can.  It  is  the  foundation  on 
which  all  our  education  must  be  built.  Our  f^^^ 
bodies  in  which  we  live  are  the  media  through 
which   we   must   communicate   with   others. 

8s 


srije  Sfvitnran^ip  of  ^rt 

f  All  our  thoughts  and  actions,  sorrows,  joys, 
^and  fears,  desires  and  demands,  can  only  be 
^'conveyed  to  our  fellows  through  these  bodies 
we    inhabit.      We    can    accomplish    nothing 
without  their  assistance.     It  is  just  as  true, 
too,  that  all  information  comes  to  us  through 
(  [       them.     To  attempt  to  educate  the  mind  and 
Lpjy^ki       heart,  without  educating  the  body,  is  more 
}f*pJ^'    foolish  than  it  would  be  to  give  a  man  all  the 
r   o3  ^A^' '  learning  of  the  ages,  and  then  doom  him  to 
^  /^*  '^        solitary  confinement  for  the  term  of  his  nat- 
ural life. 

I  fancy  we  have  not  often  enough  consid- 
ered the  beauty  of  a  coherent  personality. 
Yet  think  how  powerful  it  may  be!  Even 
in  the  one  realm  of  the  physical  personality, 
how  full  of  power  and  charm  coherent  action 
is!  You  may  see  it  in  a  juggler  or  a  tight- 
rope walker,  in  exhibitions  of  great  skill  and 
sleight-of-hand,  and  it  never  fails  to  delight 
and  entrance.  We  cannot  all  be  jugglers; 
we  cannot  all  be  even  skilful;  but  certainly 
we  can  all  be  less  slovenly  and  unwieldy  than, 

86 


we  are  —  and  add  to  the  pleasure  of  life 
thereby.  For  life  is  a  good  deal  like  walking 
up  the  bed  of  a  rocky  stream,  after  all.  You 
must  step  always  with  precision  and  intelli- 
gence, or  you  break  your  shins  and  wet  your 
skin.    A  wise  foot  makes  an  easy  journey. 

Then,  too,  is  it  not  coherence  of  character 
that  makes  success?     Is  it  not  the  power  of 
holding   ourselves   together,   and   having   an 
aim,  and  insisting  on  one  thing  at  a  time,  that 
brings  us  what  we  want?    The  flabby,  wob-  *^^*'^*^  •< 
bling,  uncertain  character  accomplishes  none  r*^^^  h^4M^ 
of  its  objects,  however  determined  it  may  be.  '    ''*^  ^^ 
There  are  some  people  with  as  little  coherence    "^'^^  - 
as  a  jelly-fish  —  aimless  organisms  afloat  in 
the  tide  of  circumstance  —  pulpy  nonentities 
stranded  by  a  single  wave,  torn  asunder  at 
a  blow.    We  must  do  better  than  that. 

And   as  our  progress   in  the  world   is  so  ^^  ^^^ 
greatly  dependent  on  this  power  of  just  co-  ^  , 

herence,   this   pulling  of  ourselves  together,        <^ 
and  holding  our  powers  in  command,  who     '^"^yf^ 
shall  say  that  the  very  possibility  of  a  con-  ^*7^^'^- 

87 


7^- 


tinued  life  for  the  spirit  may  not  depend  on 
something  of  the  same  power?  If  I  am  con- 
tent to  live  and  stand  and  walk  and  occupy 
furniture  like  a  mould  of  blanc-mange  on  a 
dish  of  china,  does  it  seem  that  I  shall  be  well 
prepared  for  immortality?  I  fancy  that  when 
old,  familiar,  friendly  Death  came  by,  he 
would  find  in  me  a  mound  of  glutinous  plas- 
ticity, nothing  more.  It  must  be  another  sort 
of  coherence  which  is  to  stand  the  test  of 
change  and  growth  and  joy. 


88 


i^WmQ  antr  Eafein^ 


Emerson,  in  his  essay  on  "  Compensation," 
says  that  he  had  long  wished  to  draw  atten- 
tion to  that  important  law  of  the  universe. 
Giving  and  Taking,  the  law  of  exchange,  is 
merely  a  part  of  compensation. 

The  capacity  for  giving  and  taking  is  an 
elemental  one.  In  all  nature  it  seems  to  be 
the  most  primary  law  of  life.  The  very 
weathering  of  rocks  means  that  they  receive 
the  sun  and  frost  and  rain,  absorb  them,  trans- 
mute them  by  chemic  change,  and  then  give 
off  the  resultant  dust  and  detritus  —  infini- 
tesimal portions  of  themselves  to  be  returned 
to  the  great  clearing-house  of  nature. 

A  grade  higher,  in  the  plant  world,  the  ex- 
change is  more  apparent.     The  flowers  and 

89 


trees  and  grasses,  the  whole  sensitive  covering 
of  the  earth,  taking  from  the  elements  and 
giving  to  the  elements,  seem  to  have  no  other 
function  than  this  process  of  exchange.  The 
living  organism  of  the  flower  is,  we  know, 
endowed  with  capacities  and  needs  for  receiv- 
ing light  and  moisture  and  warmth  from  the 

\  heaven  above  and  the  earth  beneath.  Sun- 
shine and  dews  and  showers  and  the  more 
solid  elements  of  the  ground  are  received  by 
it  and  made  part  of  its  very  composition.  It 
has  the  power  to  take  of  these  passing  phe- 
nomena just  so  much  as  it  may  need  and  trans- 
form it  by  a  secret  law  into  a  part  and  parcel 

I  of  its  own  singular  beauty.  The  flower  is  born 
after  its  kind,  but  hour  by  hour,  day  by  day, 
year  by  year,  minute  by  minute,  it  is  sustain- 
ing its  life,  its  individual  self,  from  particular 
qualities  which  it  takes  from  its  surroundings. 
And  also  minute  by  minute  and  year  after 
year  the  flower  or  the  tree  is  giving  again  to 
the  world  about  it  something  of  itself  —  seeds, 
perfume,  shade,  and  falling  leaves  and  petals. 

90 


as^muQ  anXf  Equina 

Evidently  it  could  not  go  on  for  ever,  or  even  * 
for  an  hour,  receiving  sap  and  air  and  giving 
out  nothing  in  return.    One-half  of  its  nature 
would  be  paralyzed;    it  would  begin  to  die.\ 
It  would  begin  to  perish  just  as  surely  as  if 
it  ceased  to  receive  and  continued  to  give.. 
The  power  of  exchange,  the  power  of  receiv-\ 
ing  and  giving,  is  the  very  vitality  of  the  ■ 
plant.  ^1 

This  equal  law  runs  on  up  through  the 
higher  grades  of  created  things.     The  crea- 
tures which  move  over  the  face  of  the  ground 
and  with  conscious  desire  seek  their  nourish-  y 
ment  here  and  there  are  really  doing  only 
what  the  flowers  do.    They  feed  on  this  and 
that,  some  on  herbage,  some  on  other  flesh; 
they  inhale,  some  by  air  and  some  by  water, 
the  oxygen  they  need;    they  are  warmed  to 
what  degree  their  nature  requires.     Always  ? 
they  are  taking  from  the  world  about  them 
those  elements  necessary  for  their  subsistence, 
and  always  they  are  giving  back  again  these  \ 
elements,  after  they  have  transmuted  them  to  / 

91 


their  own  use,  or  rather  to  their  own  nature. 
,  In  growth,  in  energy,  in  motion,  in  deeds,  the 
^  animal  is  constantly  giving  out  to  the  earth 
f  about  it  an  equal  compensation  for  all  it  re- 
ceives. 

How  all   these   processes   are  carried  on, 
ministering  to  life  from  hour  to  hour,  and 
transmitting  that  life  from  generation  to  gen- 
*  eration,  we  can  largely  understand.    The  pa- 
tient and  devout  labours  of  science  are  daily 
making  it  clearer  to  us.     But  why  they  are 
\  carried  on  does  not  yet  appear.   Science  shows 
J  us  wonder  after  wonder  of  beautiful  law  and 
/  orderly  succession,  and  gives  us  the  clear  rea- 
1  son  for  this  or  that  method  of  procedure,  and 
I  yet  stands   abashed   before   the   final   query. 

IWhy  the  beaver  should  build  his  house  isi 
clear  enough.    He  wishes  to  survive  the  iron 
winter,  and  his  wisdom  has  contrived  that 
j  admirable  plan  of  doing  so.    Why  he  should 
*   wish  to  survive,  no  man  can  tell.    I  know  why 
I  go  to  market  and  to  the  tailor's  and  to  the 
"*   bookshop,  and  why  I  do  a  hundred  things; 

92 


HKmuQ  anir  ZuUinu 

it  is  because  I  am  glad  of  life.  I  know  that  v 
I  am  glad  of  life;  I  know  how  I  am  glad 
of  it;  but  why  I  am  glad  of  it  I  do  not  know. 
If_I  knew  that,  I  should  know  everything, 
for  the  What,  the  How,  and  the  Why  are  all 
there  is  of  the  universe.  It  sometimes  seems 
as  if  we  might  comprehend  the  what  and  the 
how,  the  physical  and  mental,  of  the  universe. 
But  the  why,  the  spiritual,  is  still  hidden. 

In  man's  life  certainly,  as  in  the  lower 
manifestations  of  existence,  the  law  of  give 
and  take  obtains.  And  there,  as  in  the  sub- 
human kingdom,  that  process  of  transmuta- 
tion, that  change  of  what  we  receive  into  what 
we  bestow,  is  the  essence  of  life  itself.  You 
and  I,  like  our  friends  the  trees  and  our 
cousins  the  creatures,  are  every  moment  re- 
ceiving. We  must  have  air  and  light  and 
food  and  water  to  cast  into  the  crucible  of 
the  body  and  be  transformed  into  blood  and 
bone.  Every  moment  we  are  parting  with 
some  transformed  remnant  of  this  matter 
in   exhalations^  of   the   lungs,   and   evapora- 

93 


/ 


2rf|e  :ffvitnXfufiip  of  ^rt 

tions  from  the  skin.  This  is  only  the  grosser 
and  more  obvious  transformation  of  matter 
in  which  we  participate.  But  there  are  finer, 
more  delicate  changes  as  well.  Our  need  of 
rest  and  activity  is  the  need  of  chemical 
change  in  the  tissues  of  muscle  and  nerve. 
And  while  the  changes  of  circulation  and 
breathing  are  instant  and  imperative,  the 
timekeeping  rhythms  of  life,  other  energiz- 
ings  and  recuperations  are  more  leisurely  — 
eating  and  abstinences,  sleeping  and  waking, 
for  example.  In  all  these  operations  there 
is  the  obvious  rhythm,  a  balancing  of  receipt 
and  output. 

So,  too,  in  a  still  more  intangible  way,  the 
impressions  we  receive  are  transmuted  by  our 

^  own  thought  and  emotion,  and  are  then  given 
back  again  to  the  world  in  words  and  looks 
and  actions,  as  expressions  of  ourselves;  so 
that  expression  is  nature  plus  personality. 
The   best   thought  of   the  world,   the   most 

yy  beautiful  art  treasures  that  we  have,  are  the 
creation  of  man,  no  doubt.    Yet  whence  did 

94 


chilling  anH  Z^iiinQ 

they  come  to  him?    Did  he  not  first  receive 
them   as   impressions   of   the   natural  world 
about  him?     Then   having  made   them   his  *<^ 
own,  he  gave  them  back  again.    First  the  tak-  V 
ing  and  then  the  giving. 

Always,  through  every  metamorphic  pro- 
cess, we  may  notice  how  imperative  it  is  that 
the  rhythm  be  kept  up.    Indeed,  it  is  impossi-  \ 
ble  that  existence  should  continue  unless  both  / 
functions  are  being  performed.    In  the  world 
of  organized  being  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as   giving  constantly  without   receiving,   for  ,. 
exhaustion  and  death  would  follow  quickly. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  ^ 
as  receiving  continually  without  giving  forth 
again,  for  death,  though  more  tardy,  would 
be   no   less   sure.      Starvation   will    produce 
death,  but  so  also  will  a  coat  of  varnish  over 
the  body.    In  the  one  case,  our  power  of  re- 
ceiving is  interfered  with;    in  the  other,  our 
power  of  giving.     Life  is  a  stream  for  ever 
flowing  through  these  fragile  and  diaphanous 
shapes  of  ours. 

95 


^riftf  SfvitnXtnWp  of  ^tt 

f      Just  so,  too,  our  spiritual  or  intellectual  life 
1    is  always  fleeting,  passing,  renewing  itself.     I 
V  am  myself  for  a  few  years  or  decades;    but 
/  I  am  not  the  same  without  change  for  two 
^moments  together.    And  the  obvious  thought 
to  be  derived  from  this  physical  life  is,  that  in 
the  higher  as  well  as  in  the  material  existence 
^   there  must  always  imperatively  be  a  balance 
of  giving  and  taking,  perceiving  and  express- 
ing.    It  is  this  thought  which  shows  us  the 
>♦  folly  of  greed,  the  absurd  ambition  which  so 
easily  besets  us  to  possess  everything  which 
pleases  us.     Do  you  wish  to  own  a  whole 
museum  of  beautiful  objects?    Do  you  not  see 
that,  according  to  the  laws  of  life,  you  could 
never  keep  these  things  for  yourself?     You 
would  have  to  give  them  away  again  in  one 
way  or  another.    What  you  really  need,  that 
you  may  take,  and  that  no  one  can  keep  from 
you.    Do  you  think  the  one  success  in  life  is 
f  to  receive  and  have?     Under  the  pinch  of 
j  hunger  and  cold,  it  seems  to  you  that  death 
I  through   poverty  is   the  only  horror  in   the 

96 


world  to  be  guarded  against.  It  seems  to  you 
that  those  who  have  devoted  all  the  splendid 
energies  of  man  to  receiving  and  acquiring 
alone  are  the  fortunate  ones  of  the  earth.  You 
think  that  what  is  called  wealth  is  the  one 
thing  needful.  But  if  you  look  a  second  time, 
and  consider  all  the  persons  of  affluence  whom 
you  know,  and  all  those  whom  you  see  in  pub- 
lic places,  you  will  perceive  that  many  of 
them  are  dying  as  certainly  as  the  destitute, 
perishing  of  inertia,  a  dyspepsia  of  body  and 
spirit.  And  because  they  are  so  mistaken, 
those  poor,  unhappy,  fat  people,  trundled  use- 
lessly by  in  their  carriages  are  as  deserving 
of  your  pity  as  the  beggar  on  the  sidewalk. 

Between  giving  and  taking  lies  the  nice 
poise  or  calm  which  is  the  gladness  of  life 
itself,  perhaps. 


97 


CJe  Secret  of  ^rt 


As  in  Homer's  line,  "  Many  are  the  tongues 
of  mortals,  but  the  speech  of  the  immortals 
is  one,"  so  rfie  secrets  pi  the  artist  are  many, 
but  there  is  only  one  secret  of  art.  Lacking 
that,  we  may  spend  lifelong  toil  in  the  pur- 
suit of  perfection;  we  may  master  a  bril- 
liant technique  and  compass  the  profoundest 
thought;  the  architecture  of  our  work  may 
be  sound  and  its  finish  flawless;  none  the  less 
without  the  secret  it  will  be  futile.  We  may 
heed  every  tradition,  follow  every  hint  of 
written  or  unwritten  lore;  yes,  and  we  may 
even  fling  every  accepted  creed  of  our  craft 
to  the  four  winds,  and  build  anew  with  the 
intuitive  instinct  we  call  originality,  so  that 
we  will  endure  awhile,  filling  all  eyes  with 
wonder  and  every  mouth  with  praise,  and  yet 

98 


^f^t  S^ttvti  of  ^vi 

we  will  fail  ultimately  if  the  secret  was  not 
in  our  heart. 

There  is  a  sort  of  greatness  about  a  true 
masterpiece  that  makes  itself  felt  we  hardly 
know  how,  that  moves  us  we  do  not  know 
why;  just  as  there  is  a  sort  of  greatness  about 
some  men,  which  compels  an  unreserved  en- 
thusiasm and  loyalty  toward  them.  It  is  the 
quality  which  endears  people  to  us.  This 
man  may  be  brave  and  irreproachable;  that 
one  may  be  clever  to  bewilderment;  yet,  if 
they  are  not  lovable,  we  meet  them  and  part  -^•^•^ 
without  regret.  They  convince  us,  and  charm, 
and  even  win;  yet  a  moment  later  we  are  left 
as  cold  as  before.  Here  may  be  a  play,  or  a 
book,  or  an  exhibition  of  pictures,  which  is 
the  talk  of  the  town,  and  which  dazzles  the 
sense  with  its  novel  beauty;  yet  somehow, 
while  drawing  our  utmost  commendation  and 
provoking  not  a  single  palpable  criticism,  it 
never  stirs  us  from  the  centre  of  our  being. 
We  sit  in  approving  calm,  even  with  generous 
applause,  unwarmed,  unfired. 

99 


But  show  me,  perhaps,  ever  so  hasty  a 
sketch  of  gray  morning,  a  half-finished  scrap 
of  purple  sea-beach,  or  a  couple  of  stanzas 
like 

t^  "  Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky, 

Dig  my  grave  and  let  me  lie," 


or,  — 

"  The  year's  at  the  spring, 
The  day's  at  the  morn,*' 

and  just  because  it  has  the  echo  of  the  secret 
in  it,  I  shall  never  recall  it  without  a  quick- 
ening joy.  It  has  entered  in  to  be  a  part  of 
me  for  ever;  and  whatever  I  do,  whatever  I 
say,  will  have  in  it  some  minute  reverberation 
of  the  echo  of  that  secret. 

What  quality  of  art  can  it  be,  so  magical, 
so  vague,  so  strong?  You  must  ask  first  what 
quality  it  is  in  men.  For  art  is  no  more  than 
the  universal  speech  of  humanity;  and  what- 
ever taint  there  is  in  a  character  will  be  be- 
trayed in  the  voice;  though  only  the  wise 
know  this.  What  quality  is  it  in  the  personal- 
ity that  makes  it  most  memorable  to  its  fel- 

lOO 


STfie  Secret  of  ^rt 

lows?  A  man  to  be  remembered  must  have 
endeared  himself  to  men.  He  will  not  be 
remembered  for  wealth,  nor  power,  nor  wit, 
unless  he  have  used  it  beneficently,  winning 
regard  as  he  won  command.  So  you  may  say 
love  is  the  secret  of  art,  as  it  is  the  secret  of 

To  be  inevitable  (in  our  recent  phrase),  /  ^j,.^^^;;^^ 
to  have  the  inescapable  magic,  this  is  the  aim  ^^ 
of  the  artist.  If  you  analyze  this  strange  po- 
tency, it  seems  to  resolve  itself  into  the  essence 
of  endearment.  It  is,  as  we  say,  the  heart  of 
the  matter;  it  draws  our  attachment,  our  un- 
reasoned devotion,  our  love.  There  are,  of 
course,  works  of  mediocre  value,  which  enlist 
the  crudest  afifections,  and  yet  are  patently 
false  and  worthless  to  the  better  judgment; 
but  I  do  not  mean  these  watery  sentimental 
things.  I  am  speaking  of  the  rare  achieve- 
ments of  art,  such  as  came  from  the  hands  of 
Blake  and  Corot  and  Wordsworth.  Think, 
for  instance,  of  that  beautiful  lyric: 


lOI 


/^, 


"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud, 
That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills." 

You  would  not  say  that  it  embodied  a  very 
common  human  sentiment;  you  would  say 
it  is  rather  a  poem  for  the  cultivated.  And 
yet,  I  think,  the  quality  in  it  which  holds  us, 
the  indwelling  spirit  behind  that  bewitching 
mask  of  words,  is  the  spirit  of  love.  The 
heart  of  the  man,  one  is  sure,  must  have  been 
greatly  moved  before  he  could  speak  so.  And 
we,  in  our  turn,  are  greatly  moved  under  the 
spell  of  that  wizard  cadence.  At  first  it  might 
seem  a  mere  trick  of  the  senses,  a  skill  in 
accents,  the  craft  of  melodious  syllables.  It 
is  more  than  that.  We  say  it  is  intensity  or 
lyric  ardour.  But  no  craftsmanship,  however 
cunning,  can  match  that  volatile  charm,  nor 
arrest  the  fleeting  glamour  of  such  lines. 
Yet  surely,  if  the  wonder  worker  were  only  a 
master  of  skill  and  no  more,  his  intricacies 
could  be  studied  and  his  secret  caught.  But 
no,  strive  as  we  may,  there  is  no  imitation  of 
consummate  art  possible.    You  can  no  more 

I02 


STije  Settet  of  ^tt 

make  a  new  poem  which  shall  be  Words- 
worth's, than  you  can  make  a  new  man  out  of 
clay. 

The  secret  of  art  and  the  secret  of  nature 
are  one  —  the  slow,  patient,  absorbing,  gen- 
erous process  of  love  —  sustaining  itself  every- 
where on  loveliness  and  life,  and  remanifest- 
ing  itself  afresh  in  ever  new  forms  of  vitality 
and  loveliness.  It  is  because  of  this  quality, 
and  in  proportion  to  this  quality  that  we 
value  every  shred  of  art,  and  are  at  such  pains 
to  preserve  it.  By  the  simplest  natural  law, 
humanity  cares  for  those  things  which  ame- 
liorate its  lot,  and  lets  go  in  the  long  run 
everything  that  hurts  or  retards  it.  If  a  man 
is  mean  or  cruel  pr  false  or  self-absorbed,  his 
force  and  cleverness  may  still  carry  him  far; 
indeed  he  may  come  to  great  eminence  in 
fame  and  power.  The  deep,  foolish,  blind 
heart  of  goodness  in  man  is  deluded  by  his 
display.  But  by  and  by,  in  the  advance  of 
thought,  he  will  be  forgotten,  because  his  unit 
of  influence  was  never  for  the  best,  was  never 

103 


needful  for  sustaining  the  world.  In  the  en- 
largement of  aspiration  in  man,  whatever 
hinders  that  development  will  be  abandoned. 
We  shall  not  b-^  fooled  for  ever.  And  he  only 
is  on  the  winning  side,  who  can  see  in  the 
march  of  history  a  laborious  trail  cut  through 
the  underbrush  of  experience  from  darkened 
valley  to  sunlit  crest,  who  can  perceive 
whither  the  blind  by-paths  led  the  lost  adven- 
turers, and  who  will  hold  resolutely  to  that 
steep  road  —  the  prevailing  undoubtful  trend 
of  truth. 

Of  nations  you  may  say  the  same,  and  of 
art  you  may  say  the  same.  There  have  been 
unnecessary  tribes  that  have  perished  in  their 
inutility,  because  in  the  large  wise  scope  of 
progress,  in  the  preservation  of  the  fair  and 
the  good,  they  had  no  part  to  play.  And  in 
art,  which  is  only  the  embodiment  of  the  hope 

I  of  the  world,  all  that  was  petty  or  self-centred 
has  perished  and   is  perishing  from  day  to 

» day.      It   has    endured    for    awhile;     it   has 
pleased  us  by  its  cleverness,  or  beguiled  us 

104 


by  its  charm,  when  we  have  been  too  near  to 
understand  its  tendency.  With  man's  avidity 
for  truth  and  goodness  (in  spite  of  a  mon- 
strous inertia),  he  is  ready  to  follow  the  wild- 
est departures  which  promise  more  light  and 
a  liberation  from  wrong.  But  as  these  prove 
unavailing,  he  will  leave  them  for  others. 
The  history  of  art,  like  the  history  of  man, 
is  a  jungle  full  of  blind  trails  leading  no- 
whither;  and  you  will  find  they  were  aban- 
doned because  they  did  not  lead  toward  good- 
ness, toward  what  was  good  for  man ;  because 
they  did  not  make  toward  the  spaciousness 
and  freshness  of  truth. 

Long  ago,  of  course,  art  was  more  simple 
and  unconscious  than  it  has  since  become; 
and  the  devout  soul  of  the  artist  dwelt  in  his 
deft  fingers.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  do 
anything  without  conviction;  he  had  never 
heard  of  technique;  and  the  pride  of  barren 
skill  had  not  been  born.  The  man  and  his 
work  were  one.  This  is  not  to  say  that  con- 
summate care  for  workmanship,  and  untiring 

»o5 


y 


2l^i^  iFtUntrfii||(|i  of  %xi 

diligence  for  perfection,  are  wrong;  it  is 
merely  to  say  that  between  the  soul  and  the 
body  of  art  there  can  be  no  divorce  —  that 
each  is  necessary,  and  neither  can  survive 
alone. 

Is  modern  art  frivolous,  vapid,  unmanly? 
Pray  who  made  it  so?  Any  art  is  just  as 
great  as  the  age  that  produced  it.  And  for 
my  part  I  do  not  believe  that  art  can  fail  any 
more  than  I  believe  that  speech  can  cease, 
or  nature  withhold  her  changing  seasons.  If 
we  are  fallen  on  paltry  times,  as  some  would 
have  us  believe,  let  us  change  the  times.  The 
earth  is  just  as  fair  and  beautiful  and  generous 
as  it  ever  was ;  and  we  are  coming  to  under- 
stand it  better  than  our  fathers  could.  Let 
us  love  it  as  well.  Have  done  with  falsehood 
and  greed,  and  the  millennium  will  begin  to- 
morrow, with  paradise  in  your  own  dooryard. 
There  is  no  other  spirit  in  which  life  can  be 
made  worth  while,  and  there  is  no  other 
secret  of  a  great  art. 


1 06 


^  ^amn  of  Criticism 


It  has  always  been  a  difficult  problem  with 
critics  how  to  redeem  criticism  from  the  mere 
vagaries  of  personal  whim  and  reduce  it  to 
the  orderly  dignity  of  a  science.  It  is  easy 
for  the  man  of  cultivated  taste  to  say,  "  this 
pleases  me,"  or,  "  that  seems  to  me  unlovely;  " 
and  the  great  mass  of  our  current  criticism 
has  no  other  logic.  In  an  estimate  of  art,  we 
are  dependent  on  just  such  arbitrary  judg- 
ments of  critics  —  honest  opinions,  indeed, 
but  without  any  philosophic  basis.  Now  how 
are  we  to  improve  upon  these  obiter  dicta? 
Is  there  no  sound  canon  of  criticism  to  be 
substituted  for  this  haphazard  method  of 
judging  a  work  of  art? 

To  answer  these  questions  we  had  better 
107 


STJie  iFtienlrsfiiii  of  ^vt 

ask  ourselves  again  for  the  thousandth  time, 
What  is  the  nature  and  purpose  of  the  fine 
arts?  In  the  first  place,  it  will  recur  to  us, 
the  fine  arts  are  a  natural  product  of  human 
imagination  finding  expression  in  various 
forms  through  various  media.  Such  a  prod- 
uct inevitably  embodies  the  characteristics  of 
the  creative  impulse  to  which  it  owes  its  ori- 
gin; and  if  we  would  inquire  what  are  the 
invariable  and  inevitable  essentials  of  art,  — 
of  all  the  arts,  of  music,  poetry,  painting,  and 
the  rest,  —  we  must  ask  what  are  the  invari- 
able and  inevitable  characteristics  of  human 
nature.  For  whatever  features  human  nature 
presents,  we  shall  surely  find  in  any  work  of 
human  nature.  Now  one  of  the  most  salient 
features  of  human  nature  is  this,  that  it  has 
/\not  one  but  three  distinct  ways  of  appreciat- 
ing the  outer  world.  It  perceives  things  about 
it  by  means  of  the  senses;  it  apprehends  cer- 
tain stated  facts  as  true  and  others  as  false; 
and  it  looks  on  the  universe  always  with  a 
partial  spirit  —  has  preferences  and  likes  and 

io8 


^  (Nation  of  at^vititinm 

desires.  To  put  it  in  plain  terms,  we  are  made 
up  of  body,  mind,  and  spirit,  indissolubly 
linked  together. 

Now  not  only  will  all  art,  therefore,  show 
traces  of  this  threefold  nature  of  man;  it  will, 
in  its  turn,  appeal  to  man  in  each  of  these  three 
ways.  Art  must  convince  our  reason,  it  must  /^ 
enlist  our  sympathy,  it  must  charm  our  sen- 
suous nature. 

To  accomplish  the  first  of  these  objects  art 
must  be  true  —  true  to  life,  as  we  say.  It 
must  preserve  such  a  semblance  of  reality  that 
even  when  it  is  incredible  we  shall  be  half- 
inclined  to  believe  it.  And  this  verity,  on 
which  so-called  realists  insist  so  strongly, 
while  it  is  not  the  end  of  art,  is  certainly  the  J)  ^vwyJl^ 
beginning.  More  than  this,  the  subject-mat- 
ter of  art  must  be  truth.  No  art  can  be  worth 
while  which  makes  no  attempt  to  satisfy  the 
curious  mind  of  man. 

To  accomplish  its  second  purpose,  the 
arousing  of  our  emotions,  art  must  itself  be 
impassioned.     However  profoundly  true  an 

109 


2Cfie  :ffvitnrfu^ip  of  ^vt 

artist's  convictions  may  be,  however  wise  his 
philosophy,  however  comprehensive  his  ac- 
quaintance with  science,  he  will  for  ever  fail 
to  engender  the  stir  of  action  in  his  fellow 
men,  if  he  cannot  impart  warmth  to  his  pro- 
ductions and  the  vital  force  of  love,  or  hate, 
or  fear,  or  courage,  or  wonder,  or  whatever 
passion  he  will.  So  that  looking  upon  his 
work,  we  may  admire  his  skill,  and  agree  with 
his  conclusions  about  life,  but  we  shall  never 
be  really  influenced,  nor  be  moved  to  alter 
our  own  conduct  a  hair's  breadth  on  that 
account.  And  his  work,  though  brilliant,  will 
be  faulty  and  futile. 

To  accomplish  its  third  purpose  and  bring 
us  palpable  pleasure,  art  must  be  beautiful; 
y^  this  is  the  business  of  technique.  And  while 
this  requisite  is  likely  to  be  overemphasized 
by  the  artist  himself,  it  is  quite  as  likely  to 
be  undervalued  by  the  layman. 

This  is  particularly  the  case  in  our  own  day 

in  regard  to  art.    A  distracted  and  uncertain 

V      age,  astonished  with  the  many  revelations  of 

no 


^  eanon  of  ^vititinm 

science,  must  necessarily  find  itself  engrossed 
more  with  the  matter  than  with  the  form  of 
art.  We  demand  of  art  an  answer  to  our  innu- 
merabie  problems.  This  answer  it  is  part  of 
the  business  of  art  to  give.  But  in  our  haste 
we  forget  that  no  answer,  however  conclu-  I 
sive  to  our  reason,  which  is  not  at  the  same  ) 
time  consummate  in  expression  and  stirring  ' 
with  ardour,  can  ever  be  final.  We  ask  what 
literature  has  to  say,  and  care  very  little  how 
it  is  said ;  in  fact,  we  demand  from  literature 
what  more  strictly  belongs  to  science.  And 
since  poetry  is  the  one  sort  of  literature  in 
which  the  form  is  made  of  equal  importance 
with  the  substance,  we  are  inclined  to  be  in- 
different to  poetry  altogether. 

But  the  temper  of  any  period  is,  perhaps, 
never  wholly  perfect;  it  always  shows  a  bias 
in  one  direction  or  another.  One  age  may 
insist  on  the  excellence  of  the  physical,  the 
necessary  element  of  sensuous  enjoyment,  the 
paramount  need  for  beauty  in  the  world;  the 
next  may  insist  quite  as  strenuously  on  the 

III 


8rjje  JfvitnXtu'^ip  of  ^vi 

eternal  dominance  of  spiritual  and  religious 
qualities  in  life;  while  the  third  is  engrossed 
with  eager  thought,  with  science,  with  meta- 
physics.   So  that  at  no  time  do  we  have  man- 
kind engaged  in  the  effort  to  establish  a  bal- 
jance  between  these  three  diverse  yet  insep- 
jarable  phases  of  our  nature.     And  yet  that 
lis  the  one  thing  we  must  attempt  if  we  would 
'  help  ourselves  forward  on  the  interminable 
'  pathway  of  perfection. 

When  we  shall  have  established  the  worthi- 
ness of  such  an  ideal,  when  we  shall  have 
begun  to  make  it  prevail  among  men,  then 
we  shall  have  at  hand  not  only  a  canon  of 
^^  criticism,  but  a  canon  of  conduct  and  culture 
as  well.  Even  now  we  may  begin  to  apply 
such  a  standard  of  criticism  to  every  kind 
of  art,  indeed  to  all  our  civilization,  whenever 
we  have  need  to  bring  any  work  within  the 
range  of  judgment.  We  shall  no  longer  be 
slaves  of  personal  caprice,  dependent  wholly 
on  our  individual  point  of  view,  often  all  the 
more    vehement    because    it    is    irrational. 

112 


^  eanon  of  (S^tititinm 

Nothing  human,  indeed,  will  be  alien  to  us, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  human  will 
seem  excellent  which  does  not  make  at  least 
some  pretence  to  represent  human  nature  in 
its  entirety,  which  does  not  tend  to  foster  and 
encourage  that  threefold  ideal.  Men  and 
manners,  art,  industry,  and  religion,  every 
guise  in  which  our  activity  shows  itself  on 
this  earth,  will  be  subject  to  this  unique  ir- 
refutable canon. 

If  a  new  and  deservedly  popular  novel 
comes  up  for  discussion,  we  shall  say  of  it, 
perhaps :  "  Yes,  it  has  great  beauty  and 
strength;  it  moves  us  profoundly;  and  yet,  (  / 
after  all,  it  does  not  eive  us  any  sound  or 
comprehensive  judgment  upon  life;  it  is  in- 
effectual in  its  philosophy."  Here  would 
be  an  instance  of  a  work  of  art  lacking  on 
the  mental  side.  Or  again  it  might  have  a 
different  fault.  It  might  be  profoundly  keen 
and  discriminating  in  its  psychology,  stirring 
in  its  appeal  to  our  sympathy,  and  yet  after 
all  so  slovenly  and  ill  done  as  to  be  wholly 

113 


wanting  in  beauty.  There  would  be  an  in- 
stance of  neglect  of  the  physical  side  of  art. 

So,  too,  of  a  painting  or  a  statue  or  a  piece 
of  music,  our  first  question  must  always  be. 
How  does  it  respect  the  great  law  of  normal 
human  development,  how  nearly  does  it  come 
to  representing  normal  poise?  Of  human 
character,  also,  when  we  come  to  discuss  its 
merits  and  defects,  we  shall  be  able  to  say, 
this  one  was  at  fault  here,  another  was  at 
fault  there,  because  of  a  lack  of  force,  or  a 
lack  of  emotion  and  will,  or  a  lack  of  reason- 
ing capacity. 

It  is  the  business  of  art  to  charm  and  enter- 
tain us;  it  is  the  business  of  art  to  move  and 
inspire  and  ennoble  us;  and  lastly  it  is  the 
business  of  art  to  enlighten  us.  To  see  that 
art  does  this  is  the  business  of  criticism. 


114 


l^ealiam  in  Cettera 


The  question  of  realism  in  art  after  all 
must  surely  be  one  of  quantity  and  proportion. 
Every  one  must  agree  that  a  certain  amount 
of  realism  is  needed ;  the  difficulty  is  only  to 
know  how  much.  That  art  must  be  an  image 
of  nature  goes  without  saying.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness of  art  to  create  a  mimic  world  in  which 
we  may  take  delight.  The  features  of  that 
world  must  in  the  main  resemble  those  of  our 
own  old  and  well-loved  universe,  else  we 
should  be  set  to  wander  through  a  country  so 
strange  that  we  should  soon  be  lost. 

Perhaps  our  first  pleasure  in  art  is  a  child- 
ish delight  at  its  verisimilitude.  "  How  true 
to  life,"  we  exclaim,  as  the  eye  recognizes 
in  the  human  creation  a  likeness  to  something 

115 


/ 


/ 


2rt)r  iFtientrsliiii  of  Stt 

in  the  outward  world.  Unmitigated  realism 
would  in  truth  give  us  nothing  else.  And  the 
pleasure  which  a  great  many  people  get  from 
current  fiction  and  contemporary  art  depends 
on  having  this  very  simple  and  childish  sense 
gratified.  They  like  stories  about  places  that 
a_re  familiar  to  them,  and  concerning  types 
of  character  entirely  within  their  range  of 
comprehension.  Anything  exceptional  and 
unusual  demands  an  effort  of  the  imagination 
before  it  can  be  appreciated;  and  this  effort 
the  average  mind  is  unwilling  to  make,  —  so 
lethargic  and  timid  are  we  for  the  most  part 
in  facing  the  unknown. 

But  the  best  art  and  literature  are  always 
exceptional.     There   is   always   a   quality  of 
adventure  in  them.    They  represent  the  cou- 
( rageous  daring  of  the  artist  in  creating  new 
j  forms,  in  propounding  new  truths,  in  estab- 
llishing  newer  and  nobler  standards  of  con- 
duct and  enjoyment.     They  reflect  the  prog- 
ress of  humanity.    Not  only  that;  they  foretell 
and  direct  progress.     All  the  ideals  which 

u6 


Mtumm  in  HftUtfii 

humanity  has  put  in  practice  with  so  much 
pains  and  toil  were  first  enunciated  by  the  '^ 
artist,  and  by  him  presented  to  us  in  alluring 
and  intelligible  shape.  It  is  never  enough, 
and  it  never  has  been  enough,  that  the  arts 
should  give  us  only  images  of  things  we  know, 
and  proclaim  accepted  truths.  They  have 
always  had  another  trend  as  well;  they  have 
always  been  employed  in  expressing  novel 
truths,  no  less  important  than  the  old,  and  in 
clothing  those  truths  in  new  forms  no  less 
beautiful  than  the  older  forms  to  which  we 
have  been  accustomed. 

Art  and  literature,  therefore,  have  never 
been  mere  copies  of  nature;  they  have  always 
contained  the  element  of  novelty,  —  a  novelty 
more  radical  and  profound  than  the  fortui-  y 
tous  variations  of  nature.    The  forms  of  na-? 
ture  are,  indeed,  beautiful,  varied,  and  satis- 
fying;  and  the  forms  of  art  must  have  these 
qualities,  too.     At  the  same  time  they  must* 
have  much  greater  flexibility  and  power  of  i 
adaptation  than  the  forms  of  nature.    Nature,  j 

117 


i  so  far  as  we  can  observe,  proceeds  by  a  law 
so  stable  as  to  seem  unchanging.  The  growth 
of  man  proceeds  in  the  guidance  of  a  quest- 
ing and  illimitable  imagination.  So  that  the 
settled  and  infinitely  deliberate  procedure  of 
nature  will  not  serve  his  restless  purposes  at 
all.  Unless  he  can  add  thought  to  nature,  — 
unless  he  can  introduce  imagination  and  fore- 
thought and  invention  and  hope  and  aspira- 
tion into  life,  —  how  much  better  is  he  than 
the  creatures? 

Now  whatever  comes  under  the  head  of 
art,  whether  literature  or  painting,  music  or 
sculpture  or  acting  or  architecture,  being  the 
expression  of  man,  must  reflect  his  inward 
HJe,  —  his  words  and  thoughts,  his  instant 
desires  and  his  far-off  hopes  or  fears.  If  art 
were  no  more  than  an  imitation  of  nature  in 
faithful  guise,  it  would  surely  never  have  been 
born.  Certainly  it  could  never  have  attained 
any  exalted  place  in  our  esteem  such  as  we 
have  accorded  it;  nor  could  it  have  wielded 
that  incalculable  influence  which  we  know  it 

ii8 


JXtm^m  in  Uttttvn 

has  always  possessed.  It  is  only  because  art 
and  literature  are  supernatural  that  they  pull 
at  our  hearts  for  ever.  It  is  only  because  they 
partake  at  times  of  the  superhuman,  deriving 
an  inspiration  we  know  not  whence,  that  they 
ofifer  us  an  unfailing  source  of  refreshment 
and  power.  They  embody  for  us  average  men 
and  women  suggestions  for  a  life  more  fair 
and  perfect  than  ever  occurred  to  us.  They 
not  only  indicate  an  existence  more  worthy 
and  beautiful  than  our  own,  they  actually 
portray  it.  That  is  why  we  enjoy  them ;  and 
that  is  the  only  reason  that  we  enjoy  them 
without  satiety.  Once  given  the  perilous  gift 
of  self-consciousness,  the  large  slow  content- 
ment of  nature  is  no  longer  possible.  We 
must  have  ideals,  however  faulty,  and  beliefs  v 
and  opinions,  however  erroneous.  These  be- 
liefs and  ideals  it  has  always  been  the  destiny 
of  art  to  embody.  That  is  the  one  great  busi-  -v 
ness  of  art.  And  as  our  beliefs  and  ideals/ 
grow  with  our  growth,  they  find  new  housing  ' 
for  themselves  first  of  all  in  the  arts. 

119 


/£4< 


Realism,  then,  is  essential,  but  it  is  not 
everything.  The  Palace  of  Art  is  built  to 
house  a  more  admirable  company  than  any 
of  our  present  acquaintance.  The  members 
of  that  company  may  even  seem  at  times  al- 
most more  than  human.  And  yet  they  must 
remain  like  ourselves,  and  the  Palace  must 
remain  a  possible  palace,  else  we  lose  interest. 


1^' 


The  soul  can  only  be  touched  with  emulation 

by  what  comes  within  range  of  its  own  power. 

■/  Art  must  be  realistic,  or  it  will  have  no  hold 


w^^  on  our  interest;  it  must  be  more  t^an  realistic, 

j     ^^     or  it  will  not  be  able  to  make  that  hold  per- 

'  ]  I  ^  ,manent.     It  must  present  the  ideal  at  least 

i\j^    las  vividly  as  it  does  the  real,  for  the  one  is 

I  fas  important  as  the  other. 

As  we  go  about  this  lovely  world,  scenes 
and  incidents  attract  us  and  enchant  us  for  a 
moment  or  for  longer.  And  these  scenes  we 
delight  to  recall.  We  travel,  and  we  bring 
home  photographs  of  the  places  we  have  vis- 
ited, reminders  of  our  happy  hours.  It  would 
seem  that  nothing  could  be  more  faithful  than 

1 20 


JSitalinm  in  Hettetfii 

these  mechanically  accurate  reproductions  of 
the  face  of  nature.     And  yet  they  are  not 
wholly  satisfying;  a  fleeting  glimpse  preserved 
in  a  sketch  in  pencil  or  water-colour  may  be 
far  more  satisfactory.     The  photograph   re-\ 
produces   a  hundred   details  which   the  eye/ 
missed  when  it  first  came  upon  the  scene ;  and',       y 
at  the  same  time  misses  the  charm  and  the  i 
atmosphere   with   which   we   ourselves   may 
have  endowed  the  place  as  we  gazed  upon  it. 
The  sketch,  on  the  other  hand,  omits  these 
details,  just  as  our  eye  omitted  them  origin- 
ally, and  yet  preserves  the  atmosphere  of  our 
first  delighted  vision.     Can  it  be  said  then 
that  the  photograph   is  more  true  than  the 
painting?    More  true  to  the  object,  yes;   but 
not  more  true  to  our  experience  of  the  object,     y 
And  that  is  the  important  thing;  that  is  what -/^ 
art  must  always  aim  at. 


121 


/ 


Cfte  3^0  te  of  i^laismss 


There  is  some  inherent  reason  for  the 
Tightness  of  joy  in  art.  It  holds  its  place  there 
by  a  title  even  more  inalienable  than  its  title 
to  a  place  in  actual  life.  There  is  reason,  too, 
for  a  belief  in  joy  as  the  core  and  essence  of 
good  art,  as  the  one  ingredient  most  needful. 
For  joy  is,  as  it  were,  the  last  grain  to  turn 
the  balance;  it  makes  all  the  difference  be- 
tween success  and  failure,  between  life  and 
death.  Toy,  mere  gladness  in  Ijving,  is  the 
tiny  increment  which  keeps  life  dominant  and 
sane.  When  that  is  taken  from  us,  we  are 
left  to  slow  or  swift  disintegration,  disaster, 
dejection,  and  death. 

Of  all  the  good  gifts  which  ever  came  out 
of  the  wallet  of  the  Fairy  Godmother,  jhe 
gift  of  natural  gladness  is  the  greatest  and 
best.     It  is  to  the  soul  what  health  is  to  the 

122 


body,  what  sanity  is  to  the  mind,  —  the  test 
of  normality.    The  most  fortunate  of  mortals 
are  those  whom  Nature  has  endowed  with  a 
wholesome  power  of  assimilating  life,  just  as 
she  endows  her  field-bred   children  with   a 
good  digestion.    A  quick  and  ready  appetite 
for  life,  a  capacity  for  smiling  contentment, 
and  a  glad  willingness,  are  the  great  things, 
—  these  and  courage.    For  after  all  life  needs 
courage,  long-enduring,  stubborn,  unflinching 
courage.    The  bare  problem  of  life  is  so  dif- 
ficult, the  fine  art  of  living  so  well-nigh  im 
possible,  that  surely  no  man  yet  can  ever  have 
looked  at  it  with  realization  without  a  sud- 
den terror  at  heart.     Yet  there  is  laid  uponA 
us  all  the  prime  duty  of  joy,  the  obligation! 
to  be  glad,  the  necessity  for  happiness.         ^ 
In  spite  of  pain  and  failure  and  weariness 
and  exhaustion,  happiness  is  still  our  business, 
the  one  thing  to  be  attained  and  maintained 
at  all  risks  and  costs.    It  is  not  cheap,  cannot 
be  bought  in  the  open  market,  is  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  pleasure  of  the  moment, 

123 


y 


which  is  often  only  distraction.  Sometimes 
the  Great  Vender  says  to  us:  "Would  you 
buy  happiness?  Very  sorry,  sirs,  but  happi- 
ness is  particularly  scarce  to-day.  The  crop  is 
not  overplenty  this  season.  Here  is  some 
pleasure,  however,  much  cheaper  and  almost 
as  good.  We  sell  a  great  deal  of  it.  Many 
of  our  customers  prefer  it  to  the  genuine  arti- 
cle.    May  I  put  you  up  a  sample?" 

Now,  woe  be  to  you,  beauteous  mortal,  if 
you  listen  to  that  strain.  Against  that  falla- 
cious but  alluring  speech  you  are  to  set  your 
face  for  ever  like  a  rock.  Have  happiness  or 
nothing.  How  are  you  to  know  the  false  from 
the  true,  do  you  ask?  Well,  we  are  provided 
with  an  instinct  in  that  direction,  and  you  will 
find  it  is  not  easy  to  deceive  yourself  for  long 
with  any  specious  counterfeit  of  joy.  True 
happiness  differs  from  pleasure  in  being  more 
thorough,  complete,  and  indubitable.  We 
are  so  constituted  for  it,  so  dependent  on  it, 
and  so  immemorially  nourished  by  it,  that  the 
substitution  is  palpable  at  once.     Happiness 

124 


is  really  a  complete  poise  of  being,  and  comes 
upon  us  only  when  we  have  secured  a  measure 
of  health,  a  measure  of  certitude  of  mind,  and 
a  measure  of  rectitude  of  conduct.  So  small 
a  thing  can  overturn  it!  A  little  overtaxing 
of  the  physical  powers,  a  little  misuse  of  any 
faculty,  a  little  deflection  from  the  ways  of 
kindliness,  sincerity,  frankness,  and  all  our 
balance  and  self-poise  may  be  undone,  all  our 
modest  store  of  happiness  scattered  to  the  air. 
Now,  whatever  the  strange  element  of  sad- 
ness or  evil  may  be  in  the  great  universe,  it 
seems  that  all  men  and  women  may  be  divided 
into  two  great  classes,  —  the  majority,  which 
is  always  for  progress  and  assurance  and  glad 
certainty  about  life,  and  the  minority,  which 
is  full  of  trepidation  and  fe^ar  and  gloomy 
foreboding.  We  each  of  us  belong  to  the 
one  party  or  the  other,  the  successful  or  the 
unsuccessful,  the  brave  or  the  timid,  the  happy 
or  the  sad.  It  is  an  innate  difference,  a  pre- 
natal endowment,  possibly;  as  if  from  the 
first  we  had  been  destined  for  the  one  faction 

125 


of  humanity  or  the  other,  —  the  great  ma- 
jority or  the  great  minority,  the  joyous  or  the 
sorry-hearted.  Yet  much  may  be  achieved  by 
culture,  and  we  must  never  capitulate  to  the 
odious  doctrine  of  original  depravity. 

There  are  in  art  also,  which  is  no  more  than 
an   image   and   reflection   of   life,   two   main 

^ A  trends,  —  the  greater  trend  toward  gladness 

and  faith  and  strength,  and  the  lesser  trend 

U  toward  sorrow  and  doubt  and  decay.    To  the 

^  Jr  one  belong  the  masters,  to  the  other  the  minor 

^  j^X  craftsmen.    A  minor  poet  or  a  minor  painter, 

'^  '^^ ^       as  it  seems  to  me,  is  not  essentially  minor  be- 

•^^  c^  I    cause  of  the  slightness  of  his  gift,  but  because 

,    l"^     of  its  timorous  and  uncertain  quality.     And 

/3^  ;iithe  big  men  are  big  because  they  have  the 

JJ^^,    A'""     gift  of  gladness.    Or  is  that  they  are  glad  and 

^J'    ,  J'^    well  assured  because  they  are  big?     Sure  it 

'^  kr^         is,  in  any  case,  that  the  two  phenomena  appear 

11^*"  together. 

And  that,  too,  is  natural,  for  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  the 
strong  acquire  strength,  the  glad  acquire  new 

126 


gladness,  taking  these  treasures  from  their 
weaker  fellows.  So  the  great,  glad,  strong 
world,  the  vast  majority,  cares  most  for 
strength,  for  sanity,  for  gladness  in  art  and 
letters,  as  it  does  in  life ;  while  the  utterances 
of  sorrow  and  the  voices  of  doubt  are  obscured 
and  lost.  We  care  in  the  long  run  only  to 
preserve  the  work  of  the  masters;  while  the 
work  of  the  minor  artists,  however  charming, 
passes  with  its  age. 

True,  there  is  always  a  note  of  wistfulnesS 
in  art,  asjthere  is  in  life;  and  it  must  be  pres- 
ent even  in  the  strongest,  gladdest  utterances, 
else  they  could  have  no  profound  hold  upon 
us.  The  great  works  of  art  and  literature  are 
those  which  represent  life  in  its  entirety,  with 
i_ts  dominant  desires  ajid  joys,  indeed,  but  with 
its  heaviness  and  sorrow  and  dejection  as  well. 
Any  piece  of  art  which  should  be  wholly 
given  over  to  the  predominance  of  animal 
spirits,  or  of  unmitigated  joyousness,  with  no 
trace  of  the  tedium  of  time  or  the  bleak  lone- 
liness of  the  soul,  could  have  no  abiding  claim 

127 


to  universal  regard.  It  could  not  speak  to 
universal  man  in  his  common  tongue.  For 
joy,  after  all,  is  aristocratic;  and  those  im- 
mortal teachers  on  whom  the  world  has  loved 
to  lean  have  also  been  well  versed  in  the 
democracy  of  sadness.  They  have  taught  us 
that  it  is  a  prime  duty  of  the  heart  to  rejoice, 
yet  they  themselves  have  ever  known  how 
hard  that  duty  is. 

So  in  art,  in  letters,  those  who  teach  us 
through  means  of  beauty  have  always  left  a 
trace  of  sorrow  in  their  work,  which  else  had 
been  hardly  human.  They  have  felt,  perhaps, 
the  sublime  faith  which  is  unperturbed  in 
the  face  of  the  enormous  riddle;  they  have 
been  sure  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  reason, 
of  beauty,  of  goodness;  but  they  have  been 
aware,  also,  of  the  terribleness  of  actual  ugli- 
ness and  evil.  And  through  their  admonitions 
to  gladness,  their  helpful  assurances  to  bra- 
very and  effort,  there  has  always  sounded  the 
undernote  of  human  pathos  —  the  ground 
tone  of  mortality. 

128 


STfte  Kote  of  mnrant^u 

These  are  the  great  ones,  these  are  the  mas- 
ters, these  are  they  to  whom  we  must  turn  for 
consolation  and  counsel.  They  have  known 
and  suffered  life  even  as  ourselves,  and  yet 
they  have  been  able  to  endure  and  to  smile. 
Their  dicta  about  life,  therefore,  are  infinitely 
valuable  in  this  difficult  task  of  living.  And 
I  think  it  behooves  us,  in  however  small  a  way 
we  may  be  called  on  to  serve  the  world  in 
art,  to  follow  so  far  as  we  can  their  splendid 
examples  of  gladness  and  courage.  Let  the 
burden  of  sadness  be  what  it  may,  let  the  final 
solution  seem  never  so  impossible,  let  our 
spirits  be  submerged  in  all  but  utter  despair, 
there  yet  remains  the  obligation  which  none 
may  escape,  —  to  bear  witness  to  a  still  more 
universal  truth,  to  testify  to  a  gladness  in  life 
underlying  all  our  sorrows.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  hold  it,  or  call  it  ours,  or  give  expres- 
sion to  any  of  its  phases ;  our  own  destiny  may 
preclude  that;  none  the  less  must  we  acknowl- 
edge its  overlordship,  and  admit  that  doubt 
and  sorrow  are  merely  of  the  moment. 

129 


Sanitg  antr  ^t^t 


A  FRIEND  of  mine,  a  man  of  far  more  than 
ordinary  culture  and  depth  of  thought,  said  to 
me  recently  that  he  didn't  believe  the  healthy 
normal   man   would   write    poetry;    that   in 
health  the  strong  rational  human  being  is  so 
happy  that  he  does  not  need  to  find  expres- 
sion in  any  of  the  fine  arts;   to  be  alive  and 
to  do  some  useful  necessary  work  is  enough 
for  him.    And  Stevenson,  somewhere,  I  think 
^m  one  of  his  letters,  throws  out  the  hint  .that 
)  possibly  art,  after  all,  may  be  the  result  of  a 
<  diseased  condition. 

Naturally  every  follower  of  the  fine  arts 
will  be  up  in  arms  at  such  a  suggestion.  He 
will  repudiate  the  idea  of  anything  abnormal 
or  less  than  manly  in  the  occupation  he  loves 
so  well.  The  imputation  of  insanity  attach- 
ing to  genius  is  one  that  has  gained  some  cre- 

130 


dence  through  Lombroso  and  Nordau,  and 
has  ranged  the  world  of  thinking  people  into 
two  camps.  Probably  the  truth  lies  midway 
between  them. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  it  would  seem  that 
both  Lombroso  and  Nordau  are  extremists, 
and  very  often  the  simplest  aspects  of  a  case 
are  contorted  in  support  of  their  own  view. 
They  themselves  are  not  quite  balanced ;  their 
single  idea  has  run  away  with  them.  But  let 
us  ask  what  are  the  aims  of  writing  and  the 
fine  arts,  and  what  are  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  produced. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  aim  and  business 
of  the  fine  arts  is  to  represent  life.  Not 
merely  to  reproduce  the  most  exact  image  or 
picture  of  life,  but  to  reproduce  it  with  some- 
thing added.  That  something  is  the  personal 
quality  of  the  artist  himself,  his  thoughts  and 
feelings  about  life.  If,  then,  we  consider  the 
whole  body  of  art,  all  the  product  of  the  lit- 
eratures and  fine  arts  of  all  peoples,  we  may 
say  that  it  is  a  very  fair  representation  of  life, 


^  '3. 


/■O' 


STiie  iFvientrsfifji  of  ^vt 

and  in  every  case  a  fair  representation  or  rev- 
elation of  the  different  races  as  v^^ell.  Not 
only  v^^ill  each  nation  record  the  life  of  the 
world  as  it  existed  then  and  there;  it  will 
also  reveal  its  own  bias  of  judgment  and  emo- 
tion about  that  life.  Also  the  art  of  a  nation 
will  fail  here  and  there,  just  as  life  fails;  but 
in  the  long  run  it  will  not  fail;  it  will  form 
a  faithful  counterpart  and  picture,  so  far  as 
it  goes,  of  the  life  of  that  nation. 

Now  the  question  arises,  How  can  anything 
so  trustworthy  be  the  product  of  insanity? 
Sanity  surely  implies  a  capacity  for  seeing 
things  as  they  are,  and  if  art  is  born  of  insane 
conditions,  it  must  in  the  long  run  represent 
things  as  they  are  not.  If  the  fine  arts  are  the 
product  of  insanity,  then  truly  is  man  follow- 
ing a  vain  shadow. 

For  the  fine  arts  have  always  embodied  for 
men,  not  only  reflections  about  life,  but  aspira- 
tions and  ideals.  Art  has  held  the  mirror  up 
to  nature;  but  it  has  always  been  a  magic 
mirror,  a  mirror  of  the  artist's  own  make,  in 

132 


which  we  might  behold  the  world  truly  and 
accurately,  but  with  a  certain  glamour  or 
bloom  added.  It  has  shown  us  very  truly 
what  life  is,  but  it  has  also  shown  us  what 
life  might  become.  There  has  ever  been  a 
prophetic  quality  in  art.  It  has  always  been 
able  to  foreshadow  standards  of  conduct  and 
culture;  and  civilizations  have  always  tended 
to  make  themselves  over,  to  grow  and  develop, 
on  the  lines  of  progress  laid  down  by  their 
poets,  seers,  and  artists.  How,  then,  can  we 
possibly  admit  that  art  is  sprung  from  insan- 
ity? Would  it  not  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say 
that  art  is  one  of  the  most  sane  and  normal 
things  in  the  world? 

This  being  so,  if  it  be  so,  what  excuse  have 
we  for  saying  that  genius  is  touched  with  in- 
sanity; that  the  artist  is  never  quite  a  normal 
being;  or  that  art  is  the  product  of  disease, 
and  the  healthy  man  would,  after  all,  never 
wish  to  write  or  paint  or  make  music?  Can 
there  be  the  least  foundation  for  such  a  con- 
clusion? 

133 


8rtie  iPr(tntrsf|i|i  of  ^vt 

I  believe  there  is  art  which  is  born  of  un- 
wholesome conditions;  and  I  believe  there 
is  writing  which  is  certainly  not  the  product 
of  perfect  sanity;  but  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  best  writing  and  the  best  art  are  so  pro- 
duced. Any  of  the  arts  requires  in  those  who 
profess  it  an  amount  of  technical  skill  which 
is  very  exacting.  Naturally,  therefore,  all  art, 
or  at  least  every  fine  art,  very  easily  tends  to 
specialization. 

In  primitive  and  simple  times  the  fine  arts 
would  not  be  so  far  divorced  from  common 
life  as  they  are  now.  Being  in  the  first  place 
merely  means  of  expressing  universal  sorrow 
or  joy,  love  or  hate,  hope  or  fear,  they  would 
be  used  by  every  one.  But  gradually,  as  one 
or  another  individual  in  a  community  gained 
facility  and  power  and  unusual  excellence  as 
a  poet  or  a  musician,  he  would  devote  himself 
exclusively  to  that  fascinating  pursuit.  And 
so  well  was  he  esteemed,  that,  like  our  friend 
Ung  in  the  ballad,  he  need  do  nothing  but 
make  songs  and  music.     He  need  share  no 

134 


longer  in  the  most  ordinary  and  necessary 
work  of  the  world.  Now  there  is,  of  course, 
in  such  specialization  an  element  of  danger. 
The  man  highly  specialized  is  a  variant,  not 
a  normal  type.  We  should  logically  con- 
clude, then,  that  the  artist  or  the  writer  who 
is  too  exclusively  engrossed  in  his  art  is  not 
the  person  from  whom  the  best  work  is  to  be 
expected.  His  art  may  be  so  overladen  with 
technique  that  the  great  human  emotions  may 
be  lost.  The  man  has  been  swallowed  up  in 
the  artist. 

I  believe  a  critical  consideration  of  art  and 
letters,  with  this  point  in  view,  would  bear 
out  the  conclusion.  We  should  find  that  the 
great  works  of  art  and  literature,  the  works 
which  the  world  has  cared  to  preserve  with 
loving  gratitude,  have  been  produced  by  men 
whose  interest  in  life  was  greater  than  their 
interest  in  their  art.  They  were  men  first  and 
artists  afterward.  Technically  speaking,  there 
have  been  many  English  poets  far  superior 
to  Shakespeare. 

135 


The  truth  is,  therefore,  that  art  is  not  the 
product  of  a  diseased  condition  in  the  indi- 
vidual,  but  rather  the  product  of  great  sanity 
and  normal  health ;  at  the  same  time  the  over- 
zealous  and  ill-regulated  devotee  of  art  may 
very  easily  run  himself  into  an  abnormal  state 
bordering  on  disease. 

There  is  in  all  this,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
a  w^holesome  case  of  instruction  for  the  artist, 
and  a  very  palpable  warning  against  over- 
exclusive  devotion  to  a  single  line  of  develop- 
ment. It  is  so  easy  in  an  enthusiasm  for  art  to 
be  careless  about  all  else;  so  easy  to  neglect 
a  due  culture  of  all  our  powders;  so  easy  to 
push  our  development  in  a  single  direction 
until  we  lose  poise  and  become  warped  and 
distorted  through  specialization.  A  great 
care  for  our  art,  yes;  but  an  exclusive  and 
slavish  devotion  to  it,  by  no  means!  The  man 
must  be  greater  than  the  artist;  and  when  this 
is  not  so,  only  a  second-rate  art  can  be  the 
result.  So  that  if  you  are  a  writer  or  a  painter 
or  make  music  your  mistress,  it  is  of  the  ut- 

136 


most  importance  that  you  should  be  something 
of  an  athlete  and  a  philosopher  as  well.  For 
the  art  of  a  people  must  provide  the  moral 
aims  and  aesthetic  ideals  for  that  people;  it 
must,  therefore,  be  the  product  of  the  very 
best  spirits  and  minds  of  the  race. 

Upon  no  other  class  in  a  community,  then, 
does  the  obligation  of  noble  living  rest  with 
so  unremitting  a  strain  as  on  its  artists,  its 
writers  and  painters,  its  architects  and  music- 
makers.  Only  great  sanity  can  give  birth  to 
great  art.  Sanity  of  mind,  sweetness  of  tem- 
per, strength  of  physique;  an  insatiable  curi- 
osity for  the  truth  at  all  costs;  an  unswerving 
loyalty  to  manly  goodness  in  the  face  of  all 
difficulties;  and  an  unashamed  love  of  beauty 
in  every  guise;  these  are  some  of  the  prime 
qualities  which  go  to  make  an  artist. 

It  almost  seems  that  to  be  an  artist  one  must 
first  attain  a  perfect  personality.  That  is  diffi- 
cult. But  then  art  is  a  difficult  matter;  it 
is  nothing  less  than  the  embodiment  of  perfec- 
tion. 

137 


Efte  Creatine  Spirit 


It  is  not  only  in  letters  and  the  arts  that 
we  must  look  for  manifestations  of  the  crea- 
tive spirit,  but  in  the  more  usual  activities  of 
life  as  well.  Otherwise  we  are  in  danger  of 
misconceiving  the  character  of  literature,  and 
making  the  arts  seem  hardly  an  essential  fea- 
ture of  our  civilization.  If  we  would  have 
the  arts  to  flourish,  we  must  insist  on  recog- 
nizing their  inherent  vitality  in  the  common 
life  of  the  nation.  If  we  would  make  litera- 
ture that  shall  be  worthy  of  the  name,  we  must 
ourselves  be  convinced  that  it  is  something 
more  than  an  artificial  amusement  with  no 
real  hold  on  the  heart  of  a  people. 

The  creative  spirit  appears  not  less  in  life 
138 


than  in  letters.  Indeed  it  appears  a  hundred 
times  more  actively  and  easily  there;  for  our 
national  life  at  the  beginning  of  this  twentieth 
century,  be  it  what  it  may,  is  nothing  but  the 
result  of  that  spirit  working  in  the  channel 
most  natural  to  it.  In  our  time  and  generation 
the  channel  through  which  the  creative  spirit 
most  readily  finds  vent  is  the  practical  one, 
the  industrial  and  commercial  one.  It  is  true 
the  creative  spirit  has  always  found  these  dif- 
ferent avenues  for  itself,  through  which  it 
would  attempt  to  reach  perfection  and  com- 
pletely realize  its  ideal.  The  Time  Spirit  is 
the  creative  spirit,  and  as  it  moves  through 
the  ages  it  accomplishes  itself  in  various  ways, 
producing  not  the  beauties  of  the  arts  alone, 
but  the  multitudinous  revelations  of  common 
lifc^^  as  well. 

It  is  through  the  creative  spirit  that  we 
know  ourselves  a  part  of  that  which  is  abid- 
ing  in  the  universe,  which  underlies  the  eter-  v 
nal  fluidity  of  change,  and  for  ever  repeats 
itself  in  the  guise  of  myriad  forms.     In  the 

139 


Ef^t  iFttenlrslilii  of  ^tt 

early  spring  flowers,  in  the  luxuriance  of  har- 
vest, in  the  reddening  fruits  of  autumn,  in  the 
leaves  of  the  pine,  in  the  flux  of  the  laborious 
tide,  in  the  floating  mist  over  the  mountain 
crest,  the  creative  spirit  lives-  and  moves  and 
has  its  being  —  as  in  the  doubting,  hoping, 
eager,  unaging  heart  of  man.  No  small  por- 
tion of  our  sympathy  with  nature  is  no  doubt 
an  instinctive  recognition  of  this  power  in 
ourselves,  this  capacity  for  creation.  As  the 
beliefs  of  an  older  pantheism  peopled  groves 
and  trees  and  rivers,  each  with  its  own  divin- 
ity, so  our  latest  convictions  endow  the  uni- 
verse with  a  single  personality  revealed  in 
innumerable  modes  and  aspects.  Whether  the 
divine  activity  finds  vent  for  itself  through 
the  right  hand  of  a  painter,  or  in  the  unfold- 
ing of  a  fern,  is  a  difference  of  circumstance 
—  not  a  difference  of  power.  In  each  in- 
stance the  creative  spirit  is  seeking  fulfilment. 
Both  in  art  and  in  nature  the  conditions  un- 
der which  the  creative  spirit  works  are  the 
same;    the  laws  through  which  alone  it  can 

140 


operate  are  in  their  foundations  the  same. 
Man,  the  workman  in  the  world,  is  a  pygmy 
creator.  It  matters  not  at  all  whether  he; 
draws  or  digs  or  makes  music  or  builds  ships, 
in  the  work  of  his  hands  is  the  delight  of  his 
heart,  and  in  that  joy  of  his  heart  lurks  his  ' 
kinship  with  his  own  Creator,  from  whom,  ; 
through  the  obedient  will  and  plastic  hand  \ 
of  the  artist,  all  art  and  beauty  are  derived.    ^' 

The  condition  under  which  creation  takes 
place  is  invariably  threefold;   for  the  simple  l^'^"^ 
reason  that  the  creature  represents  the  creator, 
and  the  creator  himself  is  characterized  by  a 
threefold  nature. 

The  universe  presents  itself  to  us  as  poten- 
tially beautiful,  or  moral,  or  true,  according 
to   our   point   of    appreciation.      Considered      ^ 
merely  in  the  light  of  reason,  things  are  either    *^       *  r 
true  or  false;   judged  by  the  heart,  we  think  V^^^^^^^^-d 
them  goodly  or  evil ;  while  to  our  senses  they 
appear  either  fair  or  ugly.     If  we  are  thus 
aware  of  the  world   about  us,   much   more 
keenly  are  we  aware  of  a  similar  threefold 

141 


2rf|e  jfxitnXfn'^ip  of  ^tt 

consciousness  within  ourselves.  So  the  deed 
partakes  of  the  doer,  the  work  of  the  worker, 
the  thought  of  the  thinker.  It  is  no  empty 
metaphor  to  say  of  a  work  of  art  that  it  lacks 
soul ;  since  the  thing  may  indeed  be  wanting 
in  that  direction,  just  as  it  may  be  insuffi- 
ciently supplied  with  charm  or  with  reason- 
ableness; and  all  three  qualities  are  essentially 
requisite.  Only  when  they  coexist  in  nearly 
I  equal  proportion  is  perfection,  or  anything 
I  approaching  perfection,  possible  in  a  work  of 

The  good  artist  comes  to  his  work  equipped 
with  an  unusual  delicacy  of  the  senses,  so  that 
he  is  alive  to  every  shade  of  beauty  in  the 
outward  world.  He  comes  to  his  work  with 
an  unusual  depth  of  feeling,  too  —  with  an 
intense  emotional  nature,  capable  of  great 
sympathy,  great  loving-kindness,  and  great 
force  of  character.  And  lastly,  he  comes  to 
his  work  with  a  keen  understanding  of  life 
and  nature,  and  a  breadth  of  intellectual  cul- 
ture beyond  that  of  most  men.    With  a  per- 

142 


sonality  naturally  well  balanced  in  these  three  ] 
ways,  and  thoroughly  cultivated  by  careful/ 
attention  to  each  aspect  of  his  character,  he( 
is  ready  to  receive  the  inspiration  of  the/ 
Spirit  which  brooded  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters,  and  to  hear  the  Word  which  was  in] 
the  beginning.  ^ 

Not  otherwise,  for  all  our  striving,  can  the 
greatest  work  be  accomplished ;  and  even  the 
humblest  result  of  the  unknown  craftsman, 
wherever  a  trace  of  excellence  exists,  shows 
some  evidence  of  this  poise  of  powers,  this 
divine  triplicate  balance  of  forces. 

The  artist  is  enamoured  of  life,  absorbed 
in  its  colour,  its  variety,  its  drenching  beauty; 
and  always  a  love  of  life,  a  love  of  nature,  a 
love  of  his  fellows,  gives  him  elation,  happi-V^ 
ness,  and  courage;  while  at  the  same  time  he 
is  capable  of  sitting  unmoved  in  meditation 
before  the  passing  spectacle  of  existence,  and 
observing  it  in  the  white  cold  light  of  science. 
Unflinching  logic,  unbounded  love,  unmiti- 
gated  delight,   any  one  of  which   in  excess 

143 


alone  would  quickly  work  the  ruin  of  a  per- 
sonality, will,  when  duly  balanced  in  one  for- 
tunate person,  operate  together  for  the  hap- 
piest issue  of  that  life.  Only  from  such  an 
individuality  may  we  expect  significant  and 
enduring  achievement  in  art. 

From  such  considerations  a  scheme  of  edu- 
cation for  the  artist  is  easily  deducible.  And 
since  he  is  only  the  normal  man  seeking  an 
outlet  for  activity  in  one  direction  rather  than 
in  another,  we  gain  at  the  same  time  a  useful 
criterion  for  education  in  general.  It  is  not 
enough  that  the  artist  should  be  trained  in 
technique;  that  is  the  least  of  his  require- 
ments. We  must  ensure  him  the  sound  mind 
in  the  sound  body,  and,  one  may  add,  the 
loving  heart  as  well.  He  must  be  made 
strong,  agile,  deft,  alert,  sensible  to  impres- 
sions ;  he  must  be  given  the  open  mind  which 
loves  lucidity;  he  must  be  imbued  with  the 
sweetness  of  temper,  gracious  as  the  morning 
yet  perdurable  as  the  hills. 

To  such  a  man  the  work  of  his  own  hands 
144 


is  a  constant  pleasure;  his  passage  through 
the  world  an  entrancing  revelation;  and  his 
comradeship  with  men  and  women  an  un- 
tarnished happiness. 


145 


C!)«  Critical  Spirit 


7 


We  are  apt  to  think  of  criticism  as  some- 
thing very  unimportant,  and  to  offer  it  the 
merest  tolerance  as  the  pastime  of  leisurely 
scholars  and  visionaries,  with  no  bearing  on 
daily  life.  But  the  power  of  the  press  is  very 
largely  a  critical  power,  wielding  a  direct 
influence  on  all  our  undertakings  in  art,  in 
politics,  in  religion,  in  affairs.  And  this  con- 
sideration alone  should  convince  us  that  criti- 
cism comes  within  the  range  of  what  we  call 
practical  concerns. 

Criticism  resembles  original  creation  in 
that  it  has  both  a  scientific  and  an  artistic  side. 
It  is  scientific  so  far  as  it  has  to  do  with  the 
analysis  of  phenomena,  the  collecting  and 
arrangement  of  data,  the  discovery  and  eluci- 

146 


dation  of  principles,  and  the  exposition  of  the 
natural  laws  of  art.  It  is  artistic,  in  that  its 
purpose  is  to  offer  its  conclusion  to  the  student 
with  as  much  convincing  grace  and  polish  as 
may  be.  It  is  not  merely  the  part  of  criti- 
cism to  investigate  the  achievements  of  art, 
and  to  record  the  result  of  those  investiga- 
tions in  a  bare  tabulation  of  fact;  it  is  equally 
its  business,  surely,  to  win  men  to  an  alle- 
giance to  the  beautiful,  to  direct  them  courte- 
ously. It  is  not  enough  that  we  should  be 
brought  face  to  face  with  all  the  best  inter- 
pretations of  nature  and  humanity.  It  is 
needful  that  they  be  made  clear,  convincing, 
luminous,  intelligible. 

This  is  very  nearly  the  service  art  renders 
us  with  respect  to  life  and  nature.  That  fa- 
mous saying  of  Arnold's,  "  Poetry  is  a  criti- 
cism of  life,"  is  a  concise  statement  of  the 
same  idea.  It  was  never  intended,  I  take  it, 
for  a  definition  of  poetry,  yet  it  expresses  very 
aptly  one  aspect  and  function  of  all  art.  And 
this,  without  in  the  least  implying  anything 

147 


like  didacticism,  or  the  dreary  obligations  of 
a  so-called  moral  purpose.  Even  the  most 
faithful  reproductions  of  realism  are  hardly 
impersonal  utterances.  They  cannot  but  be- 
tray the  critical  standpoint  of  their  author, 
however  dispassionate  he  may  be.  If  they  are 
revolting  and  painful  in  their  bleak  veracity, 
they  speak,  perhaps,  for  his  pious  indignation 
at  some  hideous  wrong,  some  social  injustice, 
some  piteous  tragedy  of  existence;  and  we 
may  go  our  ways,  the  better  for  his  whole- 
some though  disagreeable  lesson.  If  they  are 
engrossed,  even  to  the  point  of  tediousness, 
with  the  familiar,  the  common,  or  the  dull, 
unrelieved  by  any  spice  of  romance,  unheight- 
ened  by  any  touch  of  extraneous  beauty,  they 
are  still,  it  may  be,  so  many  expressions  of  a 
serene  and  humane  personality,  perceiving 
good  everywhere  and  implicitly  declaring  the 
worth  of  life.  Let  him  be  as  literal,  as  un- 
compromising, as  he  will,  his  temperament 
and  philosophy  are  still  inevitably  revealed 
on  every  page.     Not  a  word  is  traced  on 

148 


JTfie  Critical  ^pivii 

paper,  not  a  colour  laid  to  canvas,  but  carries 
some  hint  of  the  delineator's  hand.  The 
artist's  identity  is  patent  in  his  work,  his  ac- 
cent lurks  in  every  line,  his  features  look  from 
every  phrase.  And  at  the  last,  whether  he 
intend  it  or  not,  his  collected  work  will  form 
a  commentary,  or  at  least  a  foot-note,  to  the 
great  book  of  nature. 

There  it  lies,  this  green  volume  of  the  earth, 
the  dark  sea  on  one  page,  the  dark  forested 
hills  on  the  other,  and  the  creamy  margin  of 
shore  between,  with  a  ribbon  of  surf  to  mark 
the  place.  And  there  you  may  read  to  your 
heart's  content;  the  story  will  never  be  fin- 
ished, nor  the  interest  flag,  till  you  drop  the 
task  some  night  for  very  weariness,  and  your 
candle  goes  out  with  a  puff  of  wind.  But 
while  the  brief  light  lasts,  and  your  strength 
holds  out,  how  enthralling  a  book  it  is.  What 
legendry  and  science,  what  song  and  story. 
The  obscure  records  of  the  mountains  and  the 
tides,  the  shifting  pictures  of  clouds  and  ruf- 
fling forests  and  changing  fields  from  year 

149 


2rj|e  iFtienHsfttiJ  of  ^vt 

to  year;  the  multitudes  of  the  living  trees 
and  grasses,  and  last,  most  wonderful  of  all, 
the  perishable  talking  tribes  of  men.  And 
then  to  think,  before  this  volume  how  many 
students  have  sat  and  mused,  pondering  the 
meaning  of  its  fair  text  —  so  fair,  yet  so  ob- 
scure as  well.  Here  Shakespeare  read  and 
smiled;  here  Homer  and  Horace  looked  and 
doubted;  here  Job  and  Plato,  David  and 
Dante,  Angelo  and  Darwin,  Virgil  and  Vol- 
taire, Spinoza  and  Rubens  and  Cervantes, 
found  lifelong  solace  mingled  with  disquiet. 
Scholars  and  saints,  painters  and  ploughmen, 
lovers  and  skeptics,  emperors  and  peasants, 
and  poets  and  kings;  and  what  had  they  all 
to  say  about  their  reading?  No  comment? 
Did  they  find  the  work  amusing,  or  was  it 
squalid,  or  only  dull?  Think  of  the  poetry 
of  Emerson  and  Wordsworth;  what  is  it  but 
a  critical  interpretation  of  nature?  Think  of 
the  work  of  Fielding  or  Thackeray  or  Haw- 
thorne ;  what  was  it  but  a  running  commen- 
tary on  humanity? 

150 


There  is  one  sense  in  which  all  the  arts  are  f 
one  —  in  that  they  are  all  but  differing  forms  \ 
of  expression,  differing  methods  in  which  the 
spirit  of  humanity  finds  a  voice  and  embodies  j 
its  thought  about  the  universe,  and  in  that 
sense,  surely,  all  art  is  an  appendix  to  nature,! 
a  criticism  on  experience.    Fiction  and  paint-" 
ing,  for  example,  seem  clearly  to  have  had 
their  origin  as  simple  pastimes,  yet  how  sig- 
nificant a  body  of  commentary  they  contain. 
I  suppose  the  art  of  painting  arose  in  the 
idlest  hour,  from  a  very  superfluity  of  leisure 
and    fancy,    the    chance    discovery   of   some 
dreamy  bygone  summer  afternoon;  yet  every 
line  or  shade  tells  tales  of  the  vanished  paint- 
er's sentiment  as  he  looked  out  at  the  world 
about  him.     And  modern  fiction;    there  is  a 
fine  art  which  would  seem  to  have  had  its 
beginning  in  nothing  more  serious  than  the 
telling  of  tales  over  a  winter  fire.    Yet  now, 
in  all  its  varied  complexity,  so  philosophical, 
so  intentional,  how  evidently  critical  it  has 
become. 

151 


We  must  not  forget,  either,  to  make  ample 
allowance  for  that  conception  of  art  which 
claims  for  it  a  province  quite  apart  from  the 
actual  world.  According  to  this  view,  it  is 
the  business  of  art  to  create  for  our  enjoyment 
a  fictitious  universe,  within  our  own,  yet  dis- 
severed from  it  —  an  unreal,  imaginary  pal- 
ace of  pleasure,  having  no  bearing  upon 
actual  life.  This  was  the  dream  of  the  pre- 
Raphaelites.  For  them  the  fairy-tale  was  the 
true  model  of  fiction.  They  revelled  in  crea- 
tions that  leave  nature  toiling  far  behind. 
You  would  certainly  never  go  to  them  for  a 
criticism  of  life.  And  yet  what  does  the  pres- 
ence of  such  a  fanciful  creation  mean  — 
springing  up  side  by  side  with  the  actual,  and 
resembling  it  so  little?  Is  not  its  mere  exist- 
ence a  most  significant  comment  on  the  world 
of  fact  it  pretends  to  ignore?  Is  jt . rjol .,an 
avowal  of  the  insufficiency  of  nature,  the  im- 
perfection of  our  lot?  It  is  easy  to  scoff  at 
such  fantastic  wistfulness  in  art,  but  for  my 


152 


5ri|e  €vitital  %pivii 

part  I  think  it  more  profitable  than  a  com- 
placent abiding  in  "  things  as  they  are." 

If  you  consider  the  attitude  of  the  artist, 
the  painter,  the  poet,  the  man  of  letters,  as 
an  attentive  observer  of  things  about  him,  as 
a  portrayer  of  natural  phenomena,  a  reporter 
at  large  in  all  the  splendid,  bright  avenues 
of  the  earth,  bringing  home  to  the  attention 
of  his  fellows  many  facts  from  many  sources, 
adding  some  hint  of  his  own  thoughts  con- 
cerning them,  elucidating  them  from  his 
fuller  knowledge  than  ours,  suggesting  by 
his  chosen  preference  which  seem  to  him 
most  memorable  and  noteworthy,  you  will 
be  reminded  of  the  attitude  of  the  critic,  and 
see  how  closely  they  resemble  each  other. 
Admitting  this  similarity  of  functions,  what 
are  those  qualifications  of  the  creative  artist 
which  are  requisite  to  the  right  critical  tem- 
per as  well? 

First  of  all,  I  should  place  openness  of 
mind.  One  would  think  that  a  very  obvious 
requirement,  the  least  that  could  be  asked  of 

153 


/ 


JTiie  JfvimXinf^ip  of  ^tt 

a  personality  bringing  itself  under  the  spell 
of  new  forms  and  fresh  influences  of  beauty. 
But  how  rare  it  is,  that  spiritual  candour 
which  shows  itself  in  the  utterly  unpreju- 
diced disposition  of  a  great,  patient  humility, 
jit  is  linked  on  one  side  to  the  religious  sense, 
the  capacity  for  wonder,  and  on  the  other  to 
la  profound  curiosity  that  is  for  ever  questing, 
[questing,  questing  —  the  scholar's  gift.  It  in- 
volves a  love  of  truth,  too,  undauntable  and 
unswerving,  ready  on  the  instant  to  abandon 
the  most  cherished  notion  for  the  sake  of  one 
more  tenable  in  reason.  With  an  exquisite 
susceptibility  to  impressions,  and  with  a  depth 
of  feeling  rather  than  conviction,  the  artist 
steeps  himself  in  the  atmosphere  of  every 
scene  he  would  reproduce,  the  critic  surren- 
ders himself  to  the  subtlest  influences  of  the 
masterpiece  under  his  hand.  In  either  case, 
it  is  a  finely  sensitized  mechanism,  as  delicate 
as  a  piece  of  litmus  paper  played  upon  by 
y  the  potent  element  of  beauty  in  the  chemistry 
of  the  soul,  and  bearing  unimpeachable  evi- 
"*"  154 


dence  of  the  test  Such  a  being  is  in  little 
danger  of  coming  to  destruction  through  the 
self-confidence  of  the  prig.  He  is  more  likely 
to  be  the  most  unassuming  of  mortals.  There 
will  characterize  him  a  sweet  eagerness  for 
knowledge,  not  incompatible  with  a  gentle 
regard  for  beliefs  no  longer  possible  and  con- 
ceptions no  longer  true.  He,  too,  will  be  quite 
willing  to  pass  with  the  slow  procession  of 
created  things  from  one  illusion  to  another, 
without  dejection  or  regret.  None  will  be 
more  passionately  and  keenly  alive  to  events 
than  he;  no  one  more  detached  in  contem- 
plating them.  A  sedulous,  kindly  nature, 
earth-born  and  instinctive,  will  be  his;  so 
that,  while  he  is  almost  strenuous  in  following 
a  bent,  he  will  completely  realize  the  futility 
of  insistence  and  the  folly  of  overstrain. 
Such  a  mind  will  not  be  affluent  nor  impres- 
sive, but  it  will  be  infinitely  exact  in  its  own 
way,  infinitely  careful  of  distinctions,  infi- 
nitely scrupulous  in  speech.  To  the  sobriety 
of  science  it  would  add  the  elation  of  art; 

155 


2rj|e  iFtUnlrstitii  of  ^vi 

and  to  the  elation  of  art  it  would  add  the 
smiling  afterthought  of  indecision. 

That  a  painter,  or  a  writer,  or  an  artist  of 
any  sort  must  be  receptive,  seems  almost  self- 
evident.  It  is  his  business  to  be  sensitive,  to 
keep  on  the  alert  for  all  passing  phenomena 
of  beauty,  all  the  suggestive  incidents  of  life. 
Not  a  line  or  a  gesture  must  escape  him  of  the 
manifold  human  drama  daily  enacted  before 
his  eyes;  not  a  shade  or  tone  of  colour  must 
be  lost  on  him  of  all  the  wonderful  fleeting 
loveliness  of  sky  and  sea,  mountain  and  cloud, 
sun  and  rain.  The  changing  face  of  the  uni- 
verse is  his  continual  study,  and  his  appre- 
ciation will  never  fail  to  catch  the  gusts  of 
passion  and  mood  that  sweep  across  the  tu- 
multuous regions  of  the  mind.  Whatever  else 
he  may  be,  he  can  never  for  one  moment  be 
fixed  or  stable,  save  in  the  purpose  to  be  always 
free,  always  unprejudiced,  always  ready  for 
the  new  impulse,  the  new  impression,  the  new 
inspiration.  For  whether  we  think  of  inspira- 
tion as  coming  through  experience  or  through 

156 


intuition,  it  demands  an  equally  receptive 
habit  of  thought.  And  one  who  would  be 
guided  by  it  must  have  an  equally  sedulous 
regard  for  the  inward  meaning  and  the  out- 
ward apparition  of  things.  He  must  be  en- 
dowed with  senses  of  no  ordinary  keenness, 
like  that  figure  in  Norse  mythology  who 
could  hear  the  grasses  growing;  and  a  very 
wizardry  of  instmctive  comprehension  must 
be  his.  Culture  for  him  will  mean  not  so 
much  self-perfection  as  self-absorption  in  na- 
ture and  life  for  others,  and  at  the  instance 
of  an  uncontrollable  propensity.  He  is  the 
unwearied  listener  at  the  Sphinx,  the  eternal 
wanderer  by  all  trodden  and  unfrequented 
paths;  he  is  a  nomad  in  the  blood,  and  an 
incredulous  believer  from  his  birth.  And 
this  natural  aptitude  for  indecision  and  ap- 
preciation  is  emphasized  by  a  daily  use,  is 
encouraged  and  developed  and  grows  by 
practice,  until  your  typical  artistic  tempera- 
ment, as  the  phrase  runs,  becomes  proverbi- 
ally impressionable  and  fastidious. 

157 


^ 


V 


2rf)t  iFtientrsfjtji  of  ^vt 

And  all  this,  that  he  may  convey  some  ex- 
pression of  his  new  knowledge  to  the  audi- 
ence of  his  fellows.  He  is  eyes  and  ears  for 
multitudes  less  fortunate  than  himself.  We 
rely  on  him  for  daily  fresh  reports  from  every 
corner  of  the  house  of  life,  with  all  its  won- 
derful galleries  and  crannies,  crowded  with 
fact  and  haunted  by  illusion.  But  what  is 
our  attitude  toward  him?  Many  of  those 
traits  which  are  most  useful  to  the  artist  are 
most  useful  to  the  critic  as  well.  Flexibility 
or  openness  of  mind  is  one  of  them,  and  the 
most  important.  If  the  artist  must  exercise 
absolute  freedom  in  his  art,  are  we  ready  to 
grant  him  that  right?  Do  we  look  with  tol- 
erance on  the  new  and  strange  in  art?  If  we 
were  to  approach  a  new  book  or  a  new  pic- 
ture with  anything  of  the  same  receptiveness 
which  the  writer  or  the  painter  felt  in  dealing 
with  his  subject,  we  should,  first  of  all,  be 
attentive,  curious,  impressionable.  We  cer- 
tainly should  not  be  carping  and  antagonistic. 
Our  first  effort  would  be  to  understand.    We 

J  58 


should  a££lythought  to  our  subject,  and  not 
prejudice.  -'  *^ 

While  the  creative  spirit  may  be  carried 
away  by  zeal  in  a  cause,  the  critical  spirit 
must   always    remain    impartial.     They   are 
alike,  however,  in  this,  that  to  reach  their 
best  they  must  always  be  unhampered  and 
individual.     The  critical  spirit  can  espouse  '^ 
no  party,  adhere  to  no  preconceived  notion  v 
of  the  truth.     Its  only  principle  is  a  love  of  "^^ 
truth,  of  beauty,  and  of  goodness,  wherever 
they  may  be  revealed^  and  in  whatever  guise 
they  may  appear.    It  must  stand  apart,  with-  * 
out   creed    or   predilection.      The    academic 
point  of  view,  so  valuable  for  the  conservation 
of  learning,  is  out  of  court  in  critical  afifairs; 
since  the  gist  of  art  is  revelation,  the  accom- 
plishment of  something  unprecedented.    The 
underlying  science  of  art  is  as  fixed  and  stable 
as  all  other  natural  law;   but  the  manifesta- 
tions of  art  are  always  surprising,  often  in  \ 
seeming  contradiction   to   all   tradition.     So 
that  the  purely  scholastic  mode  of  appreciat- 

159 


^f^t  iFrUntrsJiiii  of  ^vt 

ing  them  is  inadequate.  To  set  up  standards 
of  bygone  excellence  in  art  and  then  bring 
all  new  achievements  into  comparison  with 
them  is  unjust  to  both.  You  pin  your  faith 
to  Dante  and  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and 
Wordsworth,  let  us  say,  and  then  you  bring 
a  new  book  to  be  tested  by  their  standard. 
If  it  does  not  conform,  you  say  it  must  be 
poor.  But,  if  it  did  conform,  art  would  be 
a  dead  thing.  Art  and  poetry  are  not  inven- 
tions, they  are  living  and  vital  forces,  grow- 
ing with  civilization,  and  making  themselves 
felt  in  fresh  ways  every  day.  So  that  it  is 
impossible,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  confront  them 
with  any  preconceived  notion  of  what  they 
ought  to  be.  It  is  only  possible  to  criticize 
them  in  a  spirit  of  absolute  impartiality,  with 
the  unbiassed  loving  patience  of  the  scientist. 


1 60 


m^t  Man  m^^inti  tfte 


Criticism  after  all  is  little  more  than  dis- 
covery. It  is  like  science  in  that.  Their  main 
business  is  to  find  the  truth.  To  science  the 
multiform  world  of  appearances  is  a  complex, 
fascinating,  and  inexplicable  creation,  with 
something  behind  it,  —  purpose,  reason, 
mind,  —  which  science  seeks  to  understand. 
To  criticism  the  world  of  art  and  literature 
is  just  a  mimic  creation,  the  work  of  cunning 
hands  of  many  ages,  a  contrivance  of  human 
intelligence,  behind  which  lurks  and  hides  the 
immortal  spirit  of  man. 

The  scientist  or  philosopher,  with  an  un- 
flinching and  unquenchable  curiosity,  asks  of 

i6i 


the  universe,  "  Who  goes  there  behind  the 
shadowy  substance?  What  Presence  inhabits 
these  fleeting  forms,  which  make  the  lovely 
earth?  Where  dwells  the  Eternal,  and  what 
like  is  the  Unchanging,  if  any  Unchanging 
or  Eternal  there  be?"  In  his  smaller  way 
the  critic  stands  before  a  work  of  art,  inquir- 
ing in  like  spirit,  "  What  manner  of  man  was 
behind  this  thing?  What  soul  found  vent  in 
this  shape  of  beauty?  What  comprehending 
being  lent  a  passing  permanence  to  its  own 
aspirations  in  this  scrap  of  art?  " 

The  answer  to  the  critic  is  never  easy.  The 
answer  to  the  scientist  will  perhaps  never  be 
possible.  Yet  something  of  the  seriousness  of 
philosophic  science  should  always  invest  the 
business  of  criticism.  Discovery,  exposition, 
revelation,  —  that  is  the  task  of  the  critic.  To 
find  the  man  behind  the  book,  the  man  behind 
the  painting,  the  man  behind  the  music,  to 
understand  him  with  sympathy  and  intelli- 
gence and  respect;  that  is  the  first  duty  of 
criticism.    And  its  second  duty  is  to  help  oth- 

162 


rue  J^an  )$e)|inTi  t^t  IJoolt 

ers  to  understand  him.  These  two  aims  of 
criticism  imply  a  patience,  an  indulgence,  and 
a  modest  regard  for  others,  not  always  found 
in  the  critic  as  he  is.  They  would  make  him 
think  of  his  artist  first  of  all,  of  the  public 
next,  and  last  of  himself,  with  his  own  pet 
theories  and  aversions.  Unhappily  it  is  com- 
mon to  invert  this  order  of  procedure,  and 
the  critic  is  so  engrossed  with  exhibiting  his 
own  cleverness  that  the  true  subject  of  his 
exposition  is  quite  eclipsed.  Criticism  is  a 
fine  art,  of  course;  and  as  such  it  very  prop- 
erly embodies  the  personal  bias  of  the  critic. 
As  a  science,  however,  its  prime  regard  must 
be  for  its  subject. 

The  man  behind  the  book  is  not  easy  to 
discover.  To  meet  the  author,  to  dine  with 
him,  to  receive  his  autograph,  to  photograph 
him  carefully  posed  in  his  workshop,  to  note 
the  style  of  his  collar,  the  set  of  his  coat,  this 
is  not  to  know  the  man  behind  the  book. 
These  things  only  give  us  a  glimpse  of  a 
human  being  embarrassed  by  publicity  and 

163 


shrinking  from  unwarranted  scrutiny.  Any 
real  knowledge  of  the  man  behind  the  book 
is  much  more  difficult  and  requires  a  proce- 
dure much  more  subtle,  and  is  apt  to  come 
casually  at  unexpected  moments.  For  it  is 
not  merely  the  man  apart  from  his  work  we 
wish  to  know.  Having  created  anything  in 
art,  the  creator  is  no  longer  the  same;  some 
part  of  him  has  gone  into  the  making  of  his 
work;  a  large  part  of  his  real  self  is  there, 
his  deepest  convictions,  his  sincerest  purpose, 
his  finest  taste.  It  is  this  underlying  person- 
ality which  is  so  interesting  and  so  profitable 
an  object  of  study.  How  the  world  impressed 
him,  with  what  fortitude  or  timorousness  he 
fronted  life,  what  mark  sorrow  left  upon  him, 
how  grateful  he  was  for  joy,  where  he  failed 
and  where  he  was  strong,  and  whether  his 
ideals,  if  made  practical  and  put  into  effect, 
would  help  or  hinder  us  in  the  difficult  busi- 
ness of  living.  In  short,  the  object  of  criti- 
cism is  to  know  the  man.  just  as  his  object  as 
an  artist  was  to  make  himself  known.    Not 

164 


the  mere  making  of  himself  known  to  fame, 
but  the  making  of  himself  known  in  his  work, 
in  the  adequate  expression  of  himself,  —  this 
is  the  ambition  of  the  artist.  If  the  passion 
for  creation  is  in  him,  it  will  not  concern  him 
much  whether  men  recognize  him  widely  or 
not;  his  chief  anxiety  will  be  to  reveal  his 
finer  inner  self  in  his  art,  whatever  that  may 
be;  and  none  will  be  so  conscious  as  himself 
of  any  shortcoming  or  failure  in  that  delicate, 
almost  impossible,  achievement. 

Every  great  writer  is  a  friend  of  all  the 
world,  one  whom  we  may  come  to  know,  who 
can  aid  us  with  solace  and  counsel  and  enter- 
tainment. In  his  books  he  has  revealed  him- 
self, and  in  them  we  make  his  acquaintance. 
This  is  the  purpose  of  serious  reading.  Not 
merely  to  be  delighted  with  beauty  of  style; 
not  merely  to  be  informed  and  made  wise; 
not  merely  to  be  encouraged  and  ennobled  in 
spirit;  but  to  receive  an  impetus  in  all  these 
directions.  Such  is  the  object  of  culture.  To 
know  a  good  book  is  to  know  a  good  man. 

165 


To  be  influenced  by  a  trivial,  or  ignoble,  or 
false  book,  is  to  associate  with  an  unworthy 
companion,  and  to  suffer  the  inevitable  detri- 
ment. For  the  book,  like  the  man,  must  be 
so  true  that  it  convinces  our  reason  and  sat- 
isfies our  curiosity;  it  must  be  so  beautiful 
that  it  fascinates  and  delights  our  taste;  it 
must  be  so  spirited  and  right-minded  that  it 
enlists  our  best  sympathy  and  stirs  our  more 
humane  emotions.  A  good  book,  like  a  good 
comrade,  is  one  that  leaves  us  happier  or  bet- 
ter off  in  any  way  for  having  known  it.  A 
bad  book  is  one  that  leaves  us  the  poorer, 
either  by  confusing  our  reason  with  what  is 
not  true,  or  by  debasing  our  taste  with  what 
is  ugly,  or  by  offending  our  spirit  with  what 
is  evil.  For  a  book  must  always  appeal  to  us 
in  these  three  ways,  and  be  judged  by  these 
three  tests. 

Then,  too,  it  is  only  the  man  behind  the 
book  that  makes  the  book  worth  reading. 
And  what  worthless  things  often  masquerade 
under  that  noble  name!    Factory-made  abom- 

i66 


inations  of  cloth  and  paper,  without  a  shadow 
of  soul  or  sincerity  in  them  from  beginning 
to  end!  You  perceive  at  once  that  the  author 
(Heaven  forgive  him  I)  went  about  to  make 
a  contrivance  which  should  fool  the  guileless 
public,  a  book  in  nothing  but  appearance,  a 
conscious  cheat.  The  real  book  has  vitality, 
it  convinces  and  moves  and  entrances  us  by 
its  indubitable  veracity.  Its  maker  was  not 
concerned  to  produce  an  effect,  but  to  free 
his  mind  and  give  vent  to  his  feeling.  In- 
evitably the  result  of  his  effort  bears  the  stamp 
of  his  own  personality.  The  book  is  the  living 
image  of  the  man.  That  is  why  real  books 
have  a  power  over  us.  It  is  the  individuality 
that  counts.  And  wherever  there  is  a  false 
note,  something  that  the  writer  did  not  truly 
believe  and  intimately  feel,  be  sure  the  reader 
will  be  aware  of  the  discrepancy,  and  the  book 
will  fail  to  seem  natural  —  it  will  not  be 
"  convincing,"  as  we  say  in  the  jargon  of  the 
studios.  On  the  other  hand,  let  a  book  be 
never  so  crude  and  ill  written,  if  the  writer 

167 


2rj|e  JfvitnTfuf^ip  of  Mvt 

was  in  earnest  and  put  his  heart  and  mind 
into  the  work,  that  book  will  have  merit  and 
some  quality  at  least  of  an  actual  creation. 
It  will  have  had  a  creator  behind  it —  a  veri- 
table maker,  not  a  mere  manipulator;  and 
the  vitality  it  received  from  him  it  will  in 
turn  impart  to  others.  This  is  the  true  life 
of  a  book,  without  which  the  making  of  vol- 
umes becomes  a  contemptible  trade,  and  lit- 
erature a  lost  art. 


1 68 


EJe  iWiflmtorg  JWootr 


Perhaps  our  keenest  impulses,  our  joys  and 
hopes  and  depressions,  spring  from  tides  of 
influence  beyond  our  own  control.  And  we 
are  not  altogether  to  be  held  responsible  for 
moods.  More  impalpable  than  the  shadows 
of  flying  clouds,  our  moods  sweep  over  us, 
changing  the  complexion  of  day,  moving  us 
to  elation  or  sadness.  The  folly  and  utter 
inconsequence  of  moods  would  seem  to  prove 
this. 

Whatever  the  origin  of  our  moods,  cer- 
tainly some  of  them  may  clearly  be  thought 
to  spring  from  primitive  ancestral,  almost 
cosmic,  trends  of  inheritance,  and  the  habits 
of  old  generations  on  the  earth.    So  that  many 

169 


5rt)t  iFtrienlTfiifiiji  of  ^vi 

causes  we  do  not  take  note  of  are  concerned 
in  making  our  happiness. 

With  the  vernal  change  of  the  year  comes 
our  immemorial  migratory  mood,  noted  long 
ago  so  beautifully  by  Chaucer  in  the  opening 
of  the  Tales,  with  its  description  of  April, 
when  the  pilgrim  spirit  is  abroad.  Long 
before  that  delightful  cavalcade  set  out  for 
Canterbury,  folk  had  become  wanderers  and 
incipient  vagabonds  in  spring;  and  the  old 
poet's  picture  is  as  fresh  and  true  for  this  day 
as  it  was  half  a  thousand  years  ago.  And 
perhaps  we  know  the  zest  of  spring  even  more 
keenly  than  our  fathers,  as  we  need  its  refresh- 
ment the  more.  To  really  know  the  rapture 
of  April,  however,  one  must  have  lived  a 
winter  in  the  frozen  north,  where  cold  shuts 
down  like  an  iron  lid  in  November  and  is 
never  once  unlocked  until  mid-April.  Then, 
indeed,  the  warm  spring  days  return  to  these 
austere  hyperborean  regions  with  a  radiance 
unknown  to  other  zones,  and  their  May-time 
is  like  relief  to  a  beleaguered  city.    Fancy  for 

170 


yourself  the  joy  of  feeling  firm  brown  earth 
underfoot  after  treading  the  yielding  snow 
for  six  months  together!  If  you  have  ever 
walked  half  a  block  through  a  sandy  blizzard 
and  then  come  suddenly  upon  the  good  pave- 
ment, you  will  have  some  notion  of  the  mere 
bodily  relief. 

But  if  there  is  so  much  pleasurable  relief 
in  the  mere  passing  of  cold,  what  pure  pleas- 
ure of  spirit  do  we  not  share  in  the  migratory 
season.  Every  unfolding  leaf  is  an  infection 
of  joy;  every  wild  bird-note  has  its  answering 
reverberation  in  ourselves.  Perhaps  from  our 
small  brothers  of  the  air  we  have  inherited  a 
touch  of  their  genius  for  wandering,  and 
from  our  dumb  kindred  of  the  forest  some- 
thing of  the  power  of  perceptible  growth. 
We,  too,  unfold  in  spring,  put  forth  new 
capacities,  and  have  stirrings  for  change  of 
scene,  for  adventures.  We  feel  dimly  that  we 
are  truly  inheritors  of  the  kingdom  of  free- 
dom, not  mere  serfs  of  convention  and  town. 

This  vague,  subhuman,  primitive  longing 
171 


has  its  effect,  no  doubt,  in  our  social  customs, 
our  homes  and  holiday  resorts.  And  if  we  are 
growing  more  strenuous,  we  are  growing 
more  simple  and  natural  as  well.  "  The  sea- 
son "  in  town  grows  shorter  and  shorter,  the 
habit  of  a  country  holiday  more  universal. 
It  is  no  longer  considered  smart  to  flock  in 
huge,  hideous  hotels;  J:he  seclusion  of  some 
sleepy  farmhouse  in  a  nest  of  hills  is  the  ap- 
proved thing,  as  it  is  really  the  better. 

The  need  we  all  have  of  just  this  migratory 
movement  every  year!  If  you  note  it,  you 
will  perceive  the  uncomfortable  irritability 
of  your  friends  in  spring.  They  say  they  are 
out  of  sorts.  But  all  they  need  is  a  little  nat- 
ural existence,  a  cessation  from  artificial  con- 
ditions. I  read  the  other  day  what  seemed 
to  me  a  very  clever  bit  of  realism,  a  story 
called  "  Kate  Wetherell."  She  was  one  of 
those  slaves  of  the  kitchen  said  to  be  common 
in  New  England ;  she  became  so  discouraged 
that  one  night  she  attempted  suicide  by 
drowning.    But  a  providential  rope  saved  her 

172 


life,  and  the  daring  midnight  venture  re- 
sulted only  in  a  thorough  wetting.  Kate  went 
home  walking  on  air,  to  her  tiresome,  dull 
husband  and  her  round  of  pots.  From  that 
day  she  was  a  changed  woman,  with  an  un- 
quenchable seed  of  elation  within  her. 

Poor,  driven  human  soul,  how  often  you 
fancy  that  you  want  to  pass  from  this  bitter 
round  of  trial  and  toil,  when  in  reality  all 
you  need  is  a  bath  and  a  sleep!  Take  off  those 
silly,  cramping  garments,  that  idiotic  silk 
stock  that  deforms  your  neck,  those  Chinese 
shoes  that  deform  your  feet;  get  into  some 
sensible  flannels,  and  be  away  to  the  hills  or 
the  sea!  If  you  would  only  follow  your  in- 
stinct occasionally,  instead  of  making  yourself 
the  uncomfortable  cipher  of  fashion  and  cus- 
tom! X^^^^  ^^  °^^y  ^"^  ^^y  ^^  ^^^  world  to 
be  distinguished:  Follow  your  instinct!  Be 
yourself,  and  you'll  be  somebody.  Be  one 
more  blind  follower  of  the  blind,  and  you  will 
have  the  oblivion  you  deserve.  Instincts  were 
made  to  be  heeded,  not  to  be  thwarted.    Per- 

173 


^f^t  iFtrfentrsijiji  of  ^tt 

sonality  was  made  to  be  cherished,  not  to  be 
annihilated.  And  it  is  right  to  want  to  move 
from  the  narrow  and  constricting  to  the  broad 
and  ennobling.  You  cannot  go  to  the  coun- 
try too  soon  this  summer,  nor  stay  too  long. 
Let  us  give  ample  play  to  the  migratory 
mood,  believing  it  an  inheritance  Jrom  vaster 
times  and  a  hint  of  unmeasured  journeys  yet 
to  come.  Let  us  become  well  accustomed  to 
it,  attaching  ourselves  not  too  firmly  to  one 
place,  nor  to  one  tenet,  nor  to  one  custom, 
however  good. 


174 


a^n  Emtrition 


It  is  a  wonderful  June  morning  in  a  New 
England  town.  Long  before  breakfast-time 
the  birds  have  waked  you  with  their  riotous 
medley  of  songs  and  calls.  Probably  it  was 
the  oriole  in  the  orchard,  talking  away  in  his 
mellow  syllables,  who  actually  roused  you  to 
consciousness  at  last.  Then  you  were  glad 
to  be  awake,  for  you  remembered  you  were 
not  in  the  city  any  longer,  and  you  gave  a 
sigh  of  relief  and  stretched  far  down  in  the 
cool,  clean  linen.  But  the  oriole  sang  on  and 
the  sun  was  high  and  the  world  was  good  to 
see,  and  you  could  lie  no  longer.  Now  it  is 
after  breakfast,  and  you  stroll  out  on  the  lawn 
and  see  the  flowers  and  clover  and  hear  more 
birds  and  watch  the  people  going  to  church. 

175 


There  goes  by  a  little  lady  in  light  gown, 
with  her  parasol  and  book,  very  content  and 
happy,  to  rehearse  her  prayers  and  praises 
as  her  grandmother  did  before  her.  If  you 
look  with  the  artist's  eye,  if  you  can  attain 
for  a  moment  that  magical  vision  which  sees 
things  not  too  near  nor  yet  too  far,  which 
notes  every  detail  and  yet  is  detached  from 
the  object  and  views  it  as  in  a  dream  or  a  mov- 
ing picture,  you  will  perceive  that  she  is  not 
as  familiar  as  you  fancied.  In  reality  her 
dress  and  customs  are  as  strange  and  foreign 
as  if  she  were  a  little  Jap  or  a  Corean.  Why 
does  she  trip  away  so  lightly  over  the  grass, 
why  is  she  so  assured  in  her  happiness,  why 
does  she  wear  those  needless  gloves,  that 
strange  hat,  those  fluttering  ribbons?  I  see 
her  moving  through  the  picture  and  ask  my- 
self these  things.  Why?  Tradition,  I  sup- 
pose. Slowly  progressing  tradition  working 
for  ages  has  brought  about  her  dress  as  it  is 
this  morning,  and  made  her  set  out  for  church 


176 


in  that  calm,  delightful  way.  I  don't  know 
whether  ladies  go  to  church  in  Japan,  or 
whether  they  have  any  Sunday.  But,  if  they 
have  and  if  they  do,  how  charming  we  should 
think  their  custom!  What  a  pious  and  beau- 
tiful habit!    Yet  it  is  only  tradition. 

Is  tradition,  then,  so  great  a  beautifier  of 
this  world  and  of  our  life  here?  Is  it  not 
rather  true  to  say  that  all  our  advances  and 
advantages  have  been  won  in  a  hard-fought 
fight  with  tradition?  Is  it  not  by  stubbornly 
opposing  custom  and  by  unflinchingly  insist- 
ing on  change,  freedom,  reform,  that  we  have 
come  to  our  present  development?  Am  I 
not  right  to  be  a  liberal,  even  a  radical,  and 
set  my  face  like  a  stone  against  benumbing 
tradition?  Tradition  makes  men  bigots  and 
slaves  and  tyrants  and  superstitious  yokels. 
Tradition  is  the  father  of  persecutions,  the 
uncle  of  falsehoods,  the  brother  of  ignorance, 
and  the  grandsire  of  a  thousand  hideous  sins 
against  sweetness  and  light.  I  will  have  none 
of  tradition.    I  will  abide  by  the  example  of 

177 


my  masters,  those  brave  thinkers  who  tried 
to  teach  me  liberality.  Be  others  what  they 
may,  I  will  be  myself. 

"  Ah,  my  friend,  that  is  all  very  fine,"  said 
a  still,  small  voice,  as  I  kept  on  the  smooth, 
soft  grass,  "  but  look  here,  look  about  you. 
See  those  yellow  lilies  there  beyond  the  tennis- 
court.  All  winter  they  were  asleep  in  their 
bulbs,  dry  and  brown,  with  not  a  soul  to  tend 
them.  Yet  this  morning  there  they  are,  all 
radiance  and  light,  the  same  frail,  beautiful 
creatures  their  people  have  been  for  a  thou- 
sand years.  How  do  you  fancy  they  manage 
to  compass  that  miracle?  Tradition.  And 
you  hear  your  orioles  and  your  warblers  and 
your  robins,  each  keeping  fresh  and  fair  his 
own  imperishable  measure  of  gladness. 
There  again  is  tradition.  And  just  fancy  for 
a  moment,  please,  what  would  happen  if  your 
oriole  should  turn  radical  and  attempt  some 
new  strange  note,  some  violation  of  the  tra- 
dition of  his  kind,  or  if  the  yellow  lily  should 
presume  to  disregard  the  traditions  of  her 

178 


folk  I  No  more  lovely  lilies,  no  more  entranc- 
ing orioles,  as  long  as  the  world  might  last. 

"  Why,  my  fanciful  friend,  the  very  frame 
of  the  universe  is  hung  upon  tradition.  Tra- 
dition is  the  cement  that  holds  the  arches  of 
the  earth  in  place ;  the  planets  themselves  are 
hung  on  that  thread.  Let  it  once  break,  and 
cosmos  would  fall  about  your  ears.  If  every 
creature  after  its  kind,  and  every  herb  and 
flower  after  their  kind,  yes,  and  every  stone 
and  metal  after  their  kind,  did  not  follow 
unquestioningly  the  immutable  law  of  their 
activity,  the  tradition  of  their  race,  we  could 
not  exist  a  moment  as  we  are.  We  should 
all  be  thrown  into  primal  confusion  once 
more.  Tradition  is  the  first  letter  in  the 
alphabet  of  life." 

And  I  suppose  this  is  so.  Try  as  we  may, 
few  of  us  can  roam  very  far  from  the  central 
peg  to  which  our  own  peculiar  tradition  has 
tied  us.  We  fancy  ourselves  reformers  and 
independents.  Let  others  follow  customs,  we 
are  in  bond  to  no  law  but  our  instinct.    We 

179 


2rf|t  iFtftntrsfiiii  of  ^tt 

shall  act  for  ourselves,  as  we  think  best.  We 
shall  conform  no  more,  be  subservient  to  none. 
Let  tradition  be  hanged,  for  we  have  a  finer 
sanction  for  conduct  within  the  heart.  And 
so  off  we  fly  into  quixotic  reforms  and  a  hun- 
dred mad  schemes  for  rearranging  the  uni- 
verse in  a  day  and  house-cleaning  the  cosmos 
in  a  week. 

It  cannot  be  done.  Tradition  is  not  the 
bugbear  radicals  would  have  us  believe.  It 
safeguards  our  existence  against  our  own  too 
rash  folly.  It  keeps  us  from  the  ills  of  a  too 
precipitate  haste.  There  is  a  happy  mean  in 
conduct  between  radicalism  and  conserva- 
tism. I  hear  my  friend  on  one  side  of  the 
room  howling  at  the  "  hide-bound  conserva- 
tives." I  hear  my  friend  on  the  other  side 
muttering  at  the  "  blatant  radicals."  And  I 
do  sympathize  with  each.  If  there  is  one 
thing  I  detest  as  heartily  as  I  do  the  stuffy, 
narrow-minded,  intolerant,  unprogressive, 
conservative,  it  is  the  flannel-mouthed  agi- 
tator.   The  one  is  hopeless,  the  other  is  almost 

i8o 


worse;  he  is  destructive.  And  yet  it  is  to 
be  noted  tradition  moves.  It  moves  slowly, 
very  slowly,  but  it  does  move.  And  tradition 
is,  after  all,  no  inhuman  condition,  but  a 
habit  in  which  we  are  immemorially  inured. 
Tradition  changes,  too;  it  is  changing  every 
day,  and  it  is  we  ourselves  who  change  it. 
When  we  give  our  energy  to  the  generous 
tasks  of  reform,  I  think  perhaps  we  should 
do  well  to  remember  this:  not  to  try  to  go 
too  fast.  At  least  we  should  let  our  knowl- 
edge of  tradition  reconcile  us  to  the  difficulty 
of  progress.  We  should  remember  always 
that  the  most  thorough  method  of  reform  is 
that  which  reforms  tradition.  It  is  not  easy 
to  destroy  old  traditions,  but  it  is  possible  to 
infect  them  with  ridicule  so  that  they  pres- 
ently die,  tardily  but  surely.  Then  we  must 
all  the  while  be  fostering  new  traditions  in 
their  place.  People  are  not  adapted  as  yet 
to  a  life  without  tradition.  They  are  not  wise 
enough,  and  they  are  too  timid.  Give  them 
time.     Meanwhile,   supplant  the  old  tradi- 

i8i 


tions  with  better  ones.  Be  as  thoroughgoing 
as  you  please,  but  do  have  some  finesse.  In 
order  to  weed  your  garden,  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  root  up  everything  that  is  green. 


182 


Ilereonal  l^ijgti^m 


There  is  a  rhythm  of  poetry,  and  there  is 
a  rhythm  of  people.  And  these  two  rhythms 
are  similar  in  their  charm  and  power. 

By  a  rhythm  of  people  I  do  not  mean  any 
magnetic  or  magic  influence  generated  in  con- 
gregations of  individuals,  but  rather  the 
rhythm  peculiar  to  each  individual.  In  this 
sense  rhythm  is  an  attribute  of  personality, 
and  is  manifested  through  the  person  in  mo- 
tion and  speech.  Observe  your  friends  and 
notice  the  rhythm  peculiar  to  each ;  how  one 
is  slow  and  another  quick,  one  deliberate  and 
another  hurried,  one  jerky  and  another  grace- 
ful. I  almost  fancy,  indeed,  that  you  might 
find  one  was  iambic  and  another  trochaic  in 
essential  rhythm.     Can  you  not  think  of  the 

183 


//c 


^f^t  :ffvittOin^ip  of  ^vt 

/ponderous   character   that  moves   step   after 
[Step,   word    after  word,   with    the   emphasis 
r always  delayed  until  the  second  thought,  the 
vsecond  look,  the  second  movement,  the  sec- 
^ond  words?    Dons  and  dowagers  and  police- 
men are  always  iambic  in  their  rhythm.    Re- 
call the  rhythm  of  blank  verse,  the  most  com- 
mon iambic  measure  in  English,  in  the  lines: 

"  So  all  day  long  the  noise  of  battle  rolled 
Among  the  mountains  by  the  winter  sea," 

and  you  will  perceive  at  once  how  settled  and 
prosperous  and  conservative  it  is,  quite  aris- 
tocratic and  assured.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
quote  again  from  Tennyson,  there  is  the  line 
of  excellent  trochees: 

**  In  the  spring  a  young  man's  fancy  lightly  turns  to 
<^-^^^^^  thoughts  of  love." 

How  different  from  the  iambics!  How 
sprightly,  tripping,  gay,  and  emotional!  The 
rhythm  of  a  soubrette  rather  than  a  savant. 
Then,  again,  there  is  the  slow,  uncertain,  me- 

184 


andering  rhythm  of  some  large  people  who 
move  like  a  hexameter: 

"  This  is  the  forest  primeval,  the  murmuring  pines  and 
the  hemlocks." 

Undecided  people  are  usually  of  this  dac- 
tyllic  measure;  and  it  is  a  very  dangerous 
one  to  handle. 

Again,  persons  are  like  poems  in  this,  that 
it  is  possible  to  have  a  bad  rhythm,  though 
every  rhythm  is  good   in   itself.     We  may, 
however,  destroy  our  rhythm  or  nullify  its 
effect  by  misuse.    If  we  are  naturally  iambic,  j 
we  must  be  careful  how  we  break  into  tro-  ' 
chees;    and,  if  we  are  trochaic,  we  must  be- 
ware of  lapsing  into  iambics.    The  result  of 
a^bad^^se  of   rhythms   is   always  ludicrous  J 
The  strut  of  a  bantam  and  the  skip  of  an  ^ 
archbishop  are  incongruous,   and,  therefore, 
to  be  employed  with   discrimination.     And 
with  this  provision  any  rhythm  may  be  used 
at  will  with  expressional  power.    The  prime 
rule  in  the  poetry  of  man  is  this :  Stick  to  your 

■85 


STfie  :ffvimXf»f^ip  of  ^rt 

own  rhythm.  And  remember  you  cannot  help 
using  your  own  natural  rhythm  so  long  as  you 
are  simple  and  sincere.  The  moment  you  be- 
fgin  to  pose,  you  will  unconsciously  use  an- 
other rhythm,  not  your  own;  and  every  one 
iwill  know  it.  Do  not  imagine  for  a  moment 
that  you  can  appear  to  be  what  you  are  not. 
You  are  betrayed  in  every  gesture.  Every 
syllable  "  gives  you  away."  Occasionally  a 
great  genius  may  play  a  part  which  is  not  his 
own  by  nature;  but  in  that  case  he  passes 
by  imagination  into  the  new  character,  and 
actually  is  the  person  he  plays.  This  is  the 
genius  of  the  actor,  and  it  is  the  lack  of  just 
this  power  that  is  so  apparent  in  the  mediocre 
player. 

To  live  according  to  one's  rhythm  is  the 
law  of  common  sense  and  common  honesty. 
It  is  the  first  requisite  of  sanity,  too.  And 
it  is  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of  modern  life 
tiiat  it  tends  to  throw  us  out  of  rhythm.  We 
are  nearly  all  hurried  to  a  point  of  hysteria. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  we  have  more  than 

i86 


we  can  do,  as  that  we  allow  the  haste  to  get 
on  our  nerves.  Without  being  aware  of  it 
in  the  least,  we  become  distraught,  inefficient, 
and  flighty,  simply  through  the  hurry  in 
which  we  live.  You  may  deny  it  as  you 
please,  but  noise  and  haste  are  maddening. 
Watch  the  average  business  man,  fluttering 
about  like  an  agitated  hen.  He  is  divorced 
from  his  natural,  legitimate  power,  for  he 
has  lost  his  own  rhythm.  He  does  everything 
too  quickly,  and  he  does  nothing  well.  If 
he  would  only  take  time  to  breathe  and  smile 
and  hold  up  his  chest,  he  would  accomplish 
much  more,  and  save  his  soul  alive  at  the 
same  time.  To  be  in  a  hurry  is  sometimes 
necessary.  In  that  case,  you  must  be  prepared 
with  the  natural  celerity  of  lightning,  prompt 
but  poised.  It  is  never  necessary  to  scurry. 
And  in  order  to  maintain  this  deliberation, 
of  course,  we  must  never  let  events  tread  on 
our  heels.  We  must  never  dawdle,  never 
allow  our  rhythm  to  run  more  slowly  than 
is  natural.    That  is  equally  a  fault.     But,  if 

187 


sr^e  JFvitnXin'^ip  of  'Mvt 

we  always  do  things  that  are  becoming  to  our 
personality  in  the  rhythm  that  is  our  true  ex- 
pression, neither  breathless  nor  lagging,  we 
shall  accomplish  more  than  we  dreamed  and 
we  shall  always  have  time  to  spare.  We  have 
all  the  time  there  is ;  and  in  that  time  every- 
thing can  be  done  that  ought  to  be  done.  It 
is  merely  a  matter  of  balance,  of  adjustment, 
of  rhythm,  of  keeping  the  soul  at  poise  amid 
the  forces  of  circumstance  and  will.  If  we 
miss  that  fine  poise,  we  suffer,  we  feel  the 
deterioration  that  comes  of  ineffectual  effort, 
we  have  wasted  our  power,  we  have  depleted 
our  fund  of  inertia  and  initiative  impulse,  we 
have  hindered  the  delicate  rhythm  of  per- 
sonality. 

Does  this  seem  fantastic  and  far-fetched? 
It  is  not  really  so.  Perhaps  it  is  a  matter  that 
will  not  bear  discussion.  It  will  bear  experi- 
ment, however.  If  you  do  not  believe  in  a 
personal  rhythm,  it  is  only  because  you  have 
never  thought  of  it  in  so  many  words.  If 
you  consider  it  for  a  moment  in  the  light  of 

i88 


your  own  experience,  you  will  be  convinced 
of  its  truth  and  power. 

There  is  in  poetry  a  certain  influence  or 
power,  quite  apart  from  its  logical  meaning. 
There  resides  in  the  lines  a  subtle  force  not 
given  to  prose.  This  is  the  genius  of  the 
measure  making  itself  felt.  In  the  same  way 
our  personality  makes  itself  felt  in  all  we  do, 
through  the  influence  of  our  peculiar  rhythm. 
And  we  shall  be  wise  to  cultivate  our  own 
proper  and  peculiar  measure  of  speech  and 
movement.  For  there  is  surely  a  power  given 
to  each  one  of  us,  call  it  what  you  will,  that  is 
not  expended  in  word  or  act,  but  exerts  itself 
in  the  unconscious  time  of  speech,  in  the  un- 
conscious time  of  our  deeds.  And  just  as  the' 
measure  of  verse  influences  the  hearer  and 
serves  to  carry  an  impression  from  the  poet, 
so  our  own  rhythm  afifects  all  who  come  into 
contact  with  us  in  life.  It  is  a  form  of  power 
about  which  a  materialistic  age  knows  little, 
and  therefore  one  the  more  to  be  cultivated 
and  preserved. 

189 


Cpjememl 


The  test  by  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
measure  the  value  of  any  artistic  creation  is 
its  ability  to  survive.  Anything  which  is  truly 
great  in  art,  we  say,  will  have  in  it  such  a 
power  of  appeal  and  charm  for  men  that  they 
will  be  very  unwilling  to  let  it  die.  It  will 
be  carefully  preserved  through  the  ages  for 
the  sake  of  its  rare  beauty.  We  are  so  fear- 
ful that  its  like  may  not  be  easily  found  again 
that  we  build  great  museums  and  libraries 
where  it  may  be  received  and  stored  with 
other  treasures  of  its  kind. 

Now  while  this  quality  of  permanency  in 
art  is  a  convenient  measure  of  universal  es- 
teem, it  is  in  itself  of  no  virtue  whatever.  We 
value  our  Virgil  and  our  Greek  sculpture, 
not  for  their  age,  but  for  their  beauty.    They 

190 


gather  a  certain  interest  and  pathos  in  their 
very  antiquity;  they  appeal  to  us  by  the  force 
of  lovely  association;  they  are  ripe  and  ven- 
erable. But  these  charms  may  often  be  in- 
herent in  less  admirable  work  as  well.  As 
far  as  its  antiquity  appeals  to  us,  a  poor  little 
coin  from  some  buried  city  is  almost  as  full 
of  suggestion  as  the  Venus  of  Milo  herself. 
Whether  a  beautiful  object  is  permanent  or 
impermanent  is  of  no  account  whatever  in 
valuing  its  excellence  as  art. 

A  statue  may  be  more  lovely  in  one  material 
than  in  another;  that  will  depend  on  the 
colour  and  texture  of  the  material,  not  on  its 
enduring  quality.  A  figure  in  snow  that 
would  not  outlive  the  hour  might  be  just  as 
lovely  as  one  in  marble.  Beauty  never  per- 
ishes, indeed;  but  it  endures  by  virtue  of  its 
essence  and  influence;  it  is  not  dependent  on 
the  permanence  of  gross  matter  for  its  immor- 
tality^. That  would  be  a  precarious  immortal- 
ity at  best.  Rather  is  the  permanence  of 
beauty  typified  in  the  frail  perishable  hue  and 

191 


form  of  the  flowers  and  ephemera,  so  slight, 
so  easily  destroyed,  and  yet  as  enduring  in 
their  species  as  the  elephant  or  the  yew.  In 
every  butterfly  that  floats  down  the  summer 
breeze,  you  see  the  symbol  of  that  ephemeral 
.:^  loveliness  which  it  is  art's  ambition  to  em- 
body. In  this  ephemeral  quality,  acting  and 
dancing  are  the  two  arts  nearest  to  nature. 
They  cannot  be  recorded,  but  perish  as  soon 
as  they  are  born.  While  for  music  and  poetry 
we  have  invented  some  means  of  preserva- 
tion, they  are  essentially  impermanent  in 
their  beauty.  They  are  arts  which  appeal  to 
the  ear,  fleeting  as  the  wind  over  the  sea. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  thinking  of  poetry 
at  least  as  being  a  written  art,  dependent  on 
paper  and  print  for  its  life.  That  is  largely 
so,  but  it  ought  not  to  be  so  at  all.  For 
poetry,  like  music,  must  be  rendered  in  sound 
before  it  can  come  to  its  full  effect  and  in- 
fluence. And  this  aspect  of  the  art  of  poetry 
we  should  keep  much  more  constantly  in  mind 
(at  least  so  it  seems  to  me)  if  we  are  to  main- 

192 


tain  our  love  for  it  and  our  power  in  it  to 
any  efficient  degree. 

It  is  seldom,  on  the  contrary,  that  poetry 
(to  speak  of  only  one  art)  ever  has  the  oppor- 
tunity of  reaching  its  fit  hearers  in  its  untar- 
nished glory.  Our  good  readers  are  so  la- 
mentably few,  our  taste  for  reading  aloud  is 
almost  nil.  The  spread  of  elementary  knowl- 
edge and  the  prevalence  of  journalism,  how- 
ever admirable  they  may  be  in  themselves, 
have  tended  to  deterioration  of  the  excellent 
art  of  reading  aloud,  and  so  have  had  an  ill 
effect,  too,  I  daresay,  on  the  art  of  poetry 
itself. 

In  thinking  of  poetry,  then,  let  us  think 
of  it  as  something  that  must  be  heard  to  be 
appreciated  at  its  best.  In  that  way  we  shall 
not  only  come  to  place  poetry  in  its  true  re- 
lation to  ourselves;  we  shall  be  aiding,  ever 
so  little  it  may  be,  in  readjusting  the  status 
of  poetry  and  in  emphasizing  the  beautiful 
and  sympathetic  quality  its  ephemeral  nature 
elicits. 

193 


0n  Beinfl  ineffectual 


Every  day  I  live  I  am  amazed  that  so  many 
people  should  be  content  to  be  ineffectual  in 
life.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
half  the  people  in  the  world  are  ineffectual 
because  they  don't  know  how  to  try;  and  the 
other  half  are  ineffectual  because  they  don't 
even  want  to  try. 

I  have  an  idea  that  evil  came  on  earth  when 
the  first  man  or  woman  said:  "  That  isn't  the 
best  that  I  can  do,  but  it  is  well  enough." 
In  that  sentence  the  primitive  curse  was  pro- 
nounced, and  until  we  banish  it  from  the 
world  again  we  shall  be  doomed  to  ineffi- 
ciency, sickness,  and  unhappiness.  Thorou^- 
ness  is  an  elemental  virtue.  In  nature  noth- 
ing is  slighted,  but  the  least  and  the  greatest 

194 


#n  Btinfi  Mtftttinul 

of  tasks  are  performed  with  equal  care,  and 
diligence,  and  patience,  and  love,  and  intel- 
ligence. 

We  are  ineffectual  because  we  are  slovenly 
and  lazy  and  content  to  have  things  half  done. 
We  are  willing  to  sit  down  and  give  up  be- 
fore the  thing  is  finished.  Whereas  we  should 
never  stop  short  of  an  utmost  effort  toward 
perfection  so  long  as  there  is  a  breath  in  our 
body. 

Women,  of  course,  are  worse  in  this  respect 
than  men.  Their  existence  does  not  depend 
on  their  efficiency,  and  therefore  they  can  be 
almost  as  useless  and  inefficient  as  they  please ; 
whereas,  men  have  behind  them  a  very  prac- 
tical incentive  to  efficiency,  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  starvation. 

And  there  are  ineffectual  men  enough,  cer- 
tainly. It  is  not  a  matter  of  large  attempts, 
but  of  trifles  —  the  accumulation  of  trifles 
that  makes  ultimate  success.  For  character, 
like  wealth,  may  be  amassed  in  small  quan- 
tities, as  well  as  acquired  in  one  day.    If  you 

195 


2rj|e  JfvitnXiuf^ip  of  ^vt 

watch  a  woman  dusting  a  room,  you  will 
know  at  once  whether  she  will  ever  be  able 
to  do  anything  more  important  in  the  world, 
or  whether  she  is  destined  to  keep  to  such 
simple  work  all  her  days,  going  gradually 
from  inefficiency  to  inefficiency,  until  she 
gives  up  at  last  in  despair  and  falls  into  the 
ranks  of  the  great  procession  of  the  failures 
in  life.  Watch  a  man  harness  a  horse  or  mend 
a  fence;  you  can  tell  whether  or  not  he  will 
ever  own  a  horse  and  a  farm. 

True,  it  may  not  matter  whether  the  last 

nail  is  doubled  over  instead  of  being  driven 

in  to  the  head,  but  the  state  of  mind  which 

could  be  content  with  one  nail   too  few  is 

fatal.    Indifiference  may  not  wreck  the  man's 

/life  at  any  one  turn,  but  it  will  destroy  him 

(with  a  kind  of  dry-rot  in  the  long  run.    There 

{ is  a  passion  for  perfection  which  you  will 

/  rarely  see  fully  developed ;  but  you  may  note 

(  this  fact,  that  in  successful  lives  it  is  never 

V  wholly  lacking. 

I  think  one  great  reason  for  our  common 
196 


^n  B(in0  Mtfttttxiul 

inefficiency  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  neglect 
to  correlate  our  forces.  When  we  undertake 
a  task,  we  do  not  bring  all  our  powers  to  bear. 
I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  we  should  ex- 
pend our  utmost  force  on  trifles;  that  is  not 
necessary;  we  must  always  maintain  a  re- 
serve. I  mean  that  we  should  call  into  play 
in  every  act  something  of  each  of  our  three 
natures.  If  there  is  a  stone  to  be  moved  from 
the  middle  of  the  road,  there  is  a  right  way 
to  move  it,  and  there  are  a  hundred  wrong 
ways.  That  implies  the  use  of  mind.  I  must 
bring  my  wits  to  the  task.  Also  I  may  do 
it  gladly,  when  it  will  be  easy,  or  grudgingly, 
when  it  will  be  hard  and  exhausting.  In 
short,  for  the  half-moment,  I  must  devote 
myself  to  the  stone  as  thoroughly  as  if  I  were 
rolling  it  away  from  the  door  of  heaven. 
Have  you  ever  noticed  a  nursemaid  getting 
her  baby  carriage  over  the  curb?  Usually 
she  manages  to  give  it  the  greatest  jolt  possi- 
ble. And  I  think  as  soon  as  women  can  get 
off  of  a  street-car  properly  they  should  be 
"  197 


2rj|e  iFtUnlrsliiji  of  ^vt 

allowed  to  vote.  It  is  never  enough  to  put 
strength  into  the  work,  one  must  put  heart 
and  brains  as  well. 

This  matter  of  correlating  the  three  vital 
forces  is  at  once  perhaps  the  most  important 
and  the  least  understood  element  in  personal 
success.  It  is,  in  my  judgment,  incomparably 
more  important  than  any  subject  of  study  in 
our  colleges  or  schools,  more  useful  than  any 
practical  training  we  are  now  giving  our 
young  men  and  women;  and  it  is  so  little 
understood  that  I  doubt  whether  more  than 
a  very  few  have  considered  its  real  value.  I 
am  afraid  that,  when  we  do  think  of  it,  we 
are  willing  to  take  it  for  granted,  without 
ever  actually  relying  upon  it.  That  is  a  pity. 
We  may  pervert  and  neglect  our  forces  as 
we  will;  we  may  spend  half  a  lifetime  in 
using  them  amiss,  and  yet  so  small  a  trial  of 
right  adjustment  and  correlation  would  con- 
vince us  of  the  enormous  gain  of  power  to 
be  had  in  that  direction. 


198 


Ei)e  ©utsfetrtera 


"  To  be  even  an  outskirter  in  art  leaves  a 
fine  stamp  on  a  man's  countenance."  I  had 
forgotten  the  quotation,  if  I  ever  knew  it, 
until  a  friend  recalled  it  recently  in  a  letter. 
But  it  expresses  well  the  position  of  so  many, 
does  it  not?  And  that  single  word  contains  a 
power  of  suggestion. 

To  be  an  outskirter.  That  is  itself  the  very 
embodiment  of  the  artistic  aspiration  and 
temper.  For  the  artist,  I  dare  fancy,  is  never 
desirous  of  being  wholly  absorbed;  he  dreads 
being  committed  past  recall  to  any  creed  or 
course;  he  dwells  at  the  static  centre  of  op- 
posing forces,  and  sails  leisurely  in  the  eddies 
of  the  storm;  his  supreme  fear  is  the  loss  of 
his  independence  and  his  power  of  detach- 

199 


srije  ffvitnttnf^ip  of  ^vt 

ment.  Show  me  a  man  who  cannot  make  up 
his  mind,  and  I  will  introduce  you  to  a  friend 
of  mine  who  has  the  first  rudiments  of  the 
artist  about  him.  Like  many  sayings,  this  is 
not  wholly  true;  for  if  a  man  really  cannot 
ever  make  up  his  mind  after  deliberation,  if 
he  can  make  no  choice  between  better  and 
worse  in  aesthetic  matters;  if  he  has  no  taste 
to  guide  him,  no  instinct  for  beauty;  if  he 
remains  for  ever  undecided,  he  is  no  artist 
at  all.  Such  an  unfortunate  is  only  fitted  to 
be  a  critic,  or  a  professor,  or  a  politician,  or 
something  of  that  sort;  he  can  never  hope 
to  be  a  poet,  or  a  carpenter,  or  a  doer  of 
things.  I  mean  that  one  must  have  the  habit 
of  detachment,  with  the  power  of  selection. 
To  keep  your  mind  already  made  up  is  to  be 
dull  and  fossilif erous ;  not  to  be  able  to  make 
it  up  at  all  is  to  be  watery  and  supine.  These 
are  the  two  types,  each  worse  than  the  other. 
From  the  former  came  bigotry,  bastinado, 
and  all  manner  of  bumptious  cruelty  and  hate 
that  can  make  this  paradisal  earth  a  Gehenna; 

200 


from  the  latter  came  the  sloven,  the  sentimen- 
talist, and  the  tramp,  that  forceless  contingent 
of  humanity  with  no  more  backbone  than  a 
banana,  which  shuffles  and  bewails  its  way 
through  this  delightful  valley  of  tears. 

To  avoid  both  of  these  faults  is  necessary 
—  and  possible.  Let  us  begin  by  forgetting 
for  ever  the  vile  superstition  that  "  you  can- 
not alter  human  nature."  If  you  cannot  alter 
human  nature,  you  cannot  alter  anything  on 
earth.  That  is  all  we  are  here  for,  to  alter 
human  nature,  to  make  it  more  natural  and 
more  human.  Let  us  begin  with  our  own, 
and,  when  that  is  perfect,  let  us  impart  the 
perfection  to  our  friends.  Meanwhile,  if  we 
can  perceive  any  hint  and  shadow  of  perfec- 
tion before  unrecognized,  let  us  call  it  to  the 
attention  of  others.  That  is  what  art  is  for, 
to  embody  perfection,  to  manifest  the  ideals 
we  have  not  yet  attained. 

I  should  say,  then,  that  artists  at  their  best 
are  very  far  from  being  indifferent  folk  or 
unenergetic ;  they  are,  however,  capable  of  an 

20 1 


2rt|f  iFtUntrsfifii  of  i^tt 

almost  complete  detachment.  They  are  veri- 
tably outskirters,  and  not  partakers  of  the 
milling  turmoil  of  existence.  'Tis  part  of 
their  business  to  observe,  but  seldom,  I  imag- 
ine, to  fight.  Yet,  they  are  not  all  outskirters. 
There  was  Shelley,  for  instance,  and  Carlyle. 
And  I  remember  a  lecture  of  Richard  Hov- 
ey's  (unrecorded,  and  delivered  before  a  hand- 
ful of  his  friends,  who  will  recall  that  master- 
ful treatment,  that  gentle  humour,  that  beau- 
tiful voice  which  no  one  will  hear  again  now) , 
in  which  he  touched  on  this  very  theme  in 
dealing  with  Shelley,  and  in  which  he  seemed 
to  think  the  quality  of  detachment  not  so  im- 
portant in  a  poet,  after  all.  Very  likely  he 
was  right,  and  we  must  allow  for  the  zeal  of 
the  prophets.  At  all  events,  the  very  theory 
of  detachment  would  forbid  us  holding  it  too 
rigidly.  And  the  outskirter  may  sometimes 
give  a  lusty  bufifet  in  the  right  cause  where 
he  sees  an  inviting  opportunity.  As  it  is 
written  that  the  Prince  of  Peace  once  made 
a  whip  of  cords  and  cleared  out  the  greedy 

202 

\ 
\ 


money-changers,  so  you  may  wield  a  rope's 
end  at  times  and  be  justified  —  yes,  and  be  an 
outskirter  still. 

Being  an  outskirter  is  not  in  the  least  like 
being  an  outlaw.  The  outskirter  refuses  to  be 
absorbed  in  lesser  things,  that  he  may  be  the 
more  wholly  and  freely  devoted  to  following 
the  higher  law  and  filling  the  larger  obliga- 
tion. The  artist  wishes  to  be  free,  not  that  he 
may  escape  any  obligation,  however  humble, 
but  that  he  may  find  the  source  and  orbit  of 
his  capacity.  He  foregoes  many  pleasures 
that  follow  on  compromise  and  conformity, 
for  example,  in  order  that  at  last,  after  toil- 
some days,  he  may  justify  himself  to  himself. 
Surely  that  is  a  harmless  ambition. 

And  then,  while  the  great  guild  of  artists 
may  be  considered  in  a  sense  outskirters  in  a 
world  of  active  men,  there  are  also  outskirters 
in  art —  in  a  different  sense.  There  are  those 
who  achieve  no  great  things  in  art,  who  have 
not  the  gift  or  the  time  or  the  opportunity, 
perhaps,  for  making  any  solid  contribution 

203 


to  the  beauty  of  the  palace,  who  are  still 
devoted  servitors,  not  ashamed  of  a  modest 
wage,  and  proud  of  the  great  house  they  serve. 
At  least  they  have  our  place  to  fill;  they 
help  to  form  the  society  in  which  a  great 
national  art  shall  one  day  flourish  for  the 
betterment  and  the  advancement  of  our  kind. 
If  we  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  art  at  all,  we 
must  stick  to  it,  we  must  make  it  prevail  more 
and  more. 

mmitmmmmn\     i       ■ 


ao4 


t^^t  ^rtjgfg  S09 


Browning,  in  his  poem,  "  One  Word 
More,"  has  the  well-known  line: 

"  Gain  the  man's  joy,  miss  the  artist's  sorrow." 

What  is  the  artist's  sorrow?  Can  you  ask? 
After  all,  it  is  a  sorrow  not  so  different  from 
other  men's.  In  one  word,  it  is  disappoint- 
ment; and  disappointment  of  a  kind  we  all 
have  felt,  —  the  sense  of  thwarted  and  baffled 
expression.  Fancy  the  artist,  with  his  fair 
and  enthralling  ideal  at  first  mistily  afloat 
in  his  brain,  then  gradually  growing  clearer 
and  clearer  as  he  broods  over  it  in  serene  hap- 
piness, and  finally  beginning  to  take  created 
form.  Is  there  any  greater  or  purer  pleasure 
than  his?    How  fresh,  how  alluring,  how  un- 

205 


^TJje  :ffvitnXtut^ip  of  ^tt 

tarnished  is  the  beauty  of  that  thought!  And 
with  what  untold  delight  he  broods  upon  it, 
expectant  of  the  unique  revelation  never  yet 
vouchsafed  to  man,  and  which  he  alone  is  to 
communicate  to  his  fellows!  No,  not  a  vain 
or  conscious  brooding;  for  I  doubt  if  any 
artist  pauses  to  think  of  himself.  His  joy  is 
too  instinctive,  too  elemental;  he  cannot  him- 
self quite  tell  why  he  is  so  happy;  if  you 
should  ask  him,  he  would  be  at  a  loss  to  ex- 
plain. But  happy  he  is,  bearing  about  in  his 
dark  mind  the  imperishable  splendour.  His 
whole  being,  his  character,  his  personality, 
nay,  his  person,  are  illumined  as  with  the 
sacred  fire.  He  irradiates  the  glad  glory  of 
the  elect.  He  has  been  enkindled  with  a  coal 
from  the  altar  of  the  very  god.  He  is  not 
consciously  better  than  others;  he  is  con- 
sciously only  a  normal  man,  and  saddened 
only  because  others  can  be  sad.  In  this  rapt 
state  he  walks  the  earth,  his  head  in  the  clouds 
—  child  of  eternity  and  progenitor  of  unim- 
agined  beauty. 

206 


But  wait  an  hour!  Wait  until  the  vanish- 
ing, evanescent  ideal  is  nearer  his  grasp.  Wait 
until  he  tries  to  embody  it  in  palpable  form 
—  in  terms  of  colour  or  sound  or  shape.  Ah, 
then  you  shall  see  a  shadow  of  gloom  over- 
spread his  face.  That  magic  thought,  so  new 
and  lovely,  which  seemed  at  first  so  easy  to 
express,  refuses  to  be  made  manifest.  Toil 
as  he  may,  the  artistry  is  still  at  fault.  The 
report  he  can  give  of  his  wonderful  vision 
is  in  no  wise  a  faithful  representation.  Per- 
haps by  a  sudden  flash,  as  of  enchantment,  he 
is  able  to  render  some  phase  of  his  ideal  al- 
most perfectly;  but  then,  alas,  the  enchant- 
ment does  not  hold !  The  next  instant  he  fails 
again,  and  the  harder  he  tries  the  more  futile 
do  his  attempts  become.  O  artist,  save  thy 
tears!  Vex  not  thy  heart  at  this  bitter  sorrow, 
for  it  is  the  common  fate  of  all  thy  guild  — 
never  to  be  satisfied  with  the  effort. 

Yes,  and  this  is  the  common  sorrow  of  all 
of  thy  fellow  mortals,  too.  Are  we  not,  every 
one,  beset  by  this  very  hindrance,  the  impossi- 

207 


8rt|e  iFt(entrsf|(|i  of  ^xt 

bility  of  expression?  And  does  not  this  dif- 
ficulty explain  much  of  our  disappointment 
and  discontent  with  life?  What  a  relief  and 
pleasure  it  is  to  feel  one's  self  thoroughly  and 
adequately  represented  or  expressed,  even  for 
a  moment!  When  the  complete  idea  in  our 
mind,  which  may  have  been  lying  unex- 
pressed for  a  long  time,  suddenly  some  day 
finds  its  very  self  embodied  in  a  perfect  phrase 
or  line  or  sentence  of  literature,  how  glad 
we  are!  How  we  welcome  that  artist,  and 
how  grateful  we  are  to  him  for  giving  voice 
to  our  very  thought!  And  when  some  senti- 
ment or  emotion  finds  a  like  embodiment, 
what  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  we  have!  And 
in  these  cases,  it  is  only  the  expression  of  an- 
other which  we  have  borrowed.  How  much 
more,  then,  are  we  delighted  when  the  ex- 
pression is  spontaneous,  when  we  can  unaided 
find  the  fit  and  perfect  form  in  which  to 
embody  the  breath  of  our  own  being,  the  word 
of  the  spirit. 
This  same  satisfaction,  less  in  degree  but 
208 


not  the  least  different  in  kind,  is  ours  in  daily 
human  intercourse,  when  we  move  happily 
and  among  our  fellow  men,  —  when  we  feel 
ourselves  perfectly  understood.  It  seems  to 
me  that  we  should  come  a  shade  nearer  hap- 
piness in  life  if  we  constantly  reminded  our- 
selves of  this  truth:  that  life  as  we  live  it  is 
an  art,  —  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  fine 
arts,  —  that,  indeed,  it  is  the  one  art  which 
embraces  all  others.  We  should,  I  think, 
keep  in  mind  the  joy  and  the  sorrow  of  the 
artist,  and  remember  that  our  own  happiness 
and  discontent  are  largely  similar  to  his.  We 
should  not  forget  that  in  the  arts  of  speech  and 
gesture  and  dress  —  in  the  arts  of  human  in- 
tercourse—  we  are  every  instant  using  ex- 
actly the  methods  of  all  the  other  fine  arts, 
and  are  making,  for  good  or  ill,  undeniable 
revelations  of  ourselves.  It  is  inevitable  that 
we  should  be  making  hourly  impressions  on 
our  friends.  And  does  it  not  become  an  evi- 
dent duty  that  those  impressions  should  be 
true,  that  they  should  actually  represent  us, 

209 


that  they  should  at  least  be  brought  under  our 
conscious  control,  and  made  expressive  as  well 
as  impressive?  If  we  allow  a  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  impression  we  make  on  others  and 
the  expression  we  intended  to  embody,  cer- 
tainly nothing  but  unhappiness  can  result. 
For  the  joy  of  life  depends  in  no  small  meas- 
ure on  living  adequately,  in  filling  our  sphere, 
in  leaving  no  chinks  between  the  veritable  self 
and  the  great,  beautiful,  fascinating  dominion 
of  the  senses.  A  being  placed  on  this  earth 
is  fitted,  you  may  be  sure,  both  by  inheritance 
and  training,  for  living  in  accord  with  his 
surroundings.  To  bring  himself  into  this 
close  and  satisfying  relation  is  the  clear  duty 
and  first  privilege  of  all.  And  it  can  be  done 
only  through  expression,  only  by  honestly 
making  the  inward  self  real  to  the  outward 
world. 

If  we  neglect  to  secure  for  ourselves  true, 
sincere,  pleasing,  and  reliable  expression, 
which  shall  enable  us  to  reach  the  utmost 
bounds  of  our  being,  it  is  as  if  a  seed  should 

2IO 


never  grow  to  fill  its  outer  shell.  We  should 
then  hopelessly  rattle  about  in  a  vast,  rever- 
berating, empty  world.  I  should,  indeed, 
like  to  be  the  master  of  some  fine  art.  I  can 
fancy  no  more  luxurious  gladness  in  life.  At 
least  I  should  insist  on  cultivating  the  lesser 
arts  of  expression,  —  the  personal  arts,  the 
arts  of  life. 


211 


Corpus  Ht&m  Animus 


The  case  is  so  old  that  the  very  mention 
oi  it  is  almost  a  breach  of  etiquette.  Wars 
have  been  waged,  empires  overturned,  and  the 
colour  of  the  map  changed  a  hundred  times 
by  so  trifling  a  litigation.  There  appears  one 
day  among  men  a  hairy  prophet,  coming 
down  out  of  the  mountains,  a  hermit,  an 
ascetic,  preaching  righteousness  and  the  para- 
mountcy  of  the  spirit.  Against  the  gay,  the 
worldly,  the  happy,  the  thoughtless,  the  free, 
untrammelled  children  of  the  earth,  this  bleak 
foreboder  of  ill  launches  his  rattling  exhor- 
tations. In  his  cosmos  there  have  never  been 
any  cakes  and  ale,  and  his  strenuous  mind  is 
bent  on  contorting  the  visible  world  to  his 
own  lofty  but  narrow  pattern.     Again  and 

212 


€ov9nn  \>tvnnn  ^nitann 

again  the  chosen  people  of  history  were  called  >/ 
on  to  listen  to  such  a  man,  until  it  happens 
they  have  given  us  the  most  considerable  and 
remarkable  body  of  prophecy  in  the  world, 
and  have  impressed  their  idea  of  goodness 
permanently  on  our  race.  And  the  story  of  V 
all  nations  is  similar  to  theirs,  revelations  of 
righteousness  and  relapses  to  license  —  puri- 
tan and  pagan  at  ceaseless  war  in  the  long  V 
struggle  for  ultimate  perfection.  In  Eng- 
land, for,  only  one  example,  how  the  court 
and  the  commonwealth  strove  together  in  a 
futile  deadly  clutch  for  mastery!  Not  a 
politcal  struggle  merely,  but  a  moral  one  even 
more.  Our  friend  Corpus,  the  dashing  child 
of  pleasure,  horsed  and  ringleted,  cheering 
after  instinct  down  the  delicious  flowery  roads 
of  earth;  and  our  old  friend  Animus,  severe 
and  noble,  imbued  terribly  with  the  weight 
and  serious  consequence  of  life. 

You  may  side  as  you  will;  and  probably 
you  will  side  first  with  one  and  then  with  the 
other  many  times  through  a  long  youth  before 

213 


you  discover  the  uselessness  of  partisan  quar- 
rels.    But  then  at  last  some  day,  most  likely 
in  your  golden  thirties,  when  the  false  logic 
of  extremes  has  dawned  upon  you,  there  wijl 
come  the  thought  that  light  cannot  exist  with- 
out darkness,  nor  right  without  wrong,  that 
the  only  thing  that  can  exist  without  its  op- 
posite is  non-existence  itself.    And  then  your 
heart  will   not   be   torn   asunder   any   more 
within  you  over  the  immemorial  litigation  in 
the  case  of  Corpus  versus  Animus.    You  will 
perceive  with  wonder  how  eminently  right 
^,  they  both  are;    you  will  cease  giving  your 
\undivided  allegiance  to  one  or  the  other;  you 
jwill  content  yourself  with  sharing  the  joys  and 
/sorrows  of  both  alike ;   and  you  will  heave  an 
/enormous  sigh  of  contentment  that  one  more 
I  stormy  cape  of  experience  is  past. 

Tolerance,  tolerance,  tolerance!  Be  not 
vexed  at  all  if  the  roisterer  is  noisy  in  the 
tavern  where  you  must  eat  a  modest  meal; 
neither  vaunt  yourself  as  virtuous  because 
cold  water  is  your  only  drink.     For  Corpus 

214 


;> 


eotiius  ^etfiittfii  ^nitnn^ 

has  his  virtues,  too,  —  good,  strong,  generous, 
faithful,  and  inescapable  Corpus!  And  never 
think  for  a  moment  that  your  high  asceticism 
is  better  than  his  inane  muscularity.  He  is 
but  training  himself  according  to  his  kind 
that  he  may  serve  you  the  better  according 
to  your  wisdom.  And  it  behooves  you  to 
temper  and  control  yourself  with  all  learning, 
so  that  you  can  rightly  use  that  loyal  and 
willing  servitor. 

Is  it  not  true  that  for  the  most  part  we  have 
been  willing  to  correct  the  excesses  and  igno- 
rances of  the  body  by  a  shameful  disaffection 
and  neglect?    Noble  and  sincere  as  was  the- 
ascetic  ideal,  did  it  not  sinfully  maltreat  anv 
innocent,  childish  creature,  when  it  heaped  v 
indignity  and  emaciation  on  this  fair  figure  v 
of  humanity?     Was  the  result  not  quite  as^ 
bad  as  the  sorry  ravages  of  debauchery  and\^ 
animalism?     But  one  may  say,  surely,  that 
better  thought  is  coming  to  prevail;   that  the 
ancient  fancied  antagonism  between  physical 
and  spiritual  is  seen  to  be  radically  absurd; 
•   215 


y  tHat  no  advantage  can  accrue  permanently  to 
either  except  through  the  good-will  of  both. 
All  this  is  indeed  commonplace  to  the  last 
jot,  yet  it  is  the  sober,  wholesome  truth  by 
which  we  need  to  stand,  and  to  stand  cou- 
rageously, until  we  realize  for  every  one  the 

y  Roman  criterion  —  the  sane  mind  in  the 
sound  body.  Let  us  believe  that  never  yet 
has  that  perfect  poise  of  forces  been  reached. 
•There  have  been  scholars  and  there  have  been 
fighters;  but  seldom  has  the  normal  man 
walked  the  earth  in  utter  health  of  body  and 
ispirit.  We  are  too  often  warped  by  a  wrong 
thought;  the  one  ideal  or  the  other  deludes 
us;  we  enroll  ourselves  under  Corpus  or 
Animus,  and  take  sides  in  that  time-worn 
dispute,  to  our  own  lasting  injury.  Let  us 
have  done  with  it  at  once  and  for  ever,  and 
recognize  an  equal  culture  of  the  physical  and 
the  intellectual  as  the  only  training  for  per- 
fection. It  is  so  necessary  to  have  a  true  ideal, 
to  know  the  better  way.  And  a  very  small 
experience  should  teach  us  the  truth  in  this 

216 


e^ovpnn  tietsufii  ^nimttfit 

case.     I  could  wish  that  Whitman's  prophe- 
cies were   heeded   more   generally,   and   his 
sturdy,  beautiful  aspirations  more  gladly  ac- 
cepted.    I  could  wish  that  men  and  women 
would  treat  themselves  more  rationally,  with 
greater  care  for  the  balance  of  their  forces. 
It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  we  shall  develop  a 
civilization  in  time  where  might  will  not  be 
the  only  right;  but  we  shall  do  so  to  our  own   ) 
destruction,  if  we  do  not  take  greater  and 
greater  care  of  our  physical  selves.    We  shall  ") 
never  be   as  happy  as  angels  until  we  are  ^ 
healthy  as  animals.  ' 


217 


Simplicity 


< 


It  is  customary  to  sound  the  praises  of  sim- 
plicity in  our  day  and  to  belaud  the  habit  of 
an  earlier  time,  when,  as  we  declare,  life  was 
less  complicated  than  at  present.  In  the  midst 
of  a  vital  and  nascent  civilization  we  are  per- 
haps none  too  prone  to  emulate  the  virtues  of 
our  fathers  or  imitate  their  excellent  qualities. 
Yet  we  may  easily  mistake  their  blessings. 
Is  simplicity,  after  all,  so  admirable  a  trait 
of  character,  so  fine  a  quality  in  art? 

And  what  is  this  simplicity  of  life  for  which 
we  sigh?  We  speak  of  the  simplicity  of  na- 
ture, the  simplicity  of  a  flower,  but  surely 
nothing  is  more  wonderfully  complex  than 
all  the  beautiful  products  of  the  natural 
world.     A  leaf,   for  instance,  —  one  single, 

218 


fresh,  green  maple  leaf  from  the  myriads  of 
the  forest  to-day,  —  seems  at  first  glance  sim- 
plicity itself.  Yet  its  symmetry  is  not  geo- 
metrical, but  only  artistic.  It  conforms  but 
roughly,  though  inexorably,  to  its  type.  It 
has  no  perfect  fellow  in  all  the  whole  earth 
full  of  green  companions.  It  is  not  a  machine 
product.  It  hasn't  the  simplicity  of  straight 
line  and  circle.  It  cannot  be  reproduced; 
can  hardly  be  imitated.  It  has  individuality, 
properties,  parts,  functions,  growth,  colour, 
vitality,  and  a  period  of  its  existence.  That 
is  no  simple  matter. 

Lower  in  the  scale  of  nature  there  is  greater 
simplicity.      Inorganic   is   simpler   than   or-  -j 
ganic.     Last  of  all  comes  primal  cosmos,  or 
chaos,  which  is  simplicity  itself.    On  the  other 
hand,  the  farther  you  go  ahead  in  the  devel-  -^ 
opment  of  nature,  the  more  complex  does  it  ' 
become.      Simplicity,    truly,    means   life    re- 
duced to  its  lowest  terms.    But  that  is  not  what  / 
we  actually  desire,  I  fancy. 

You  tell  me  you  love  the  simplicity  of  na- 
219 


) 


ture,  you  arc  glad  to  get  away  from  the  com- 
plications of  city  life.    Yes,  that  is  the  phrase 
we  commonly  use,  but  I  think  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  error  in  it.    What  is  it  that  wearies 
us  in  town?    Not  the  work  we  have  to  do, 
so  much  as  the  strain  of  unnatural  ugliness  and 
noise  in  which  we  allow  ourselves  to  dwell. 
/  For  work  is  not  a  burden,  but  a  pleasurable 
\  activity,  a  natural  function  of  the  healthy  and 
y*    "<  happy;  but  noise  and  ugliness  are  against  the 
trend  of  spirit  as  it  passes  from  the  lower  to 
.  the  finer  life.    Noise  and  ugliness  are  prim-  / 
V  iti^e  and  simple ;  music  and  beauty  are  com-  ^' 
plex,  and  we  only  reach  them  in  our  progress 
toward  ideal  perfection.     To  take  a  single 
instance:    you  will  admit  that  many  of  the 
gongs  on  the  street-cars  make  a  hideous  din; 
they  contribute  not  a  little  to  the  dissonance 
of  city  noises.     But  suppose  that  we  should 
go  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  making  our 
gongs  musical.     Suppose  that  they  were  all 
made  of  the  finest  bell  metal,  carefully  at- 
tuned, how  much  pleasanter  that  would  be  I 

220 


And  then,  further,  suppose  that  each  bell  were 
made  to  strike  its  own  musical  note,  and  that 
all  were  harmonized,  how  much  more  pleas- 
ure to  the  jaded  nerves!  And  in  each  im- 
provement, you  will  observe,  we  should  be 
making  a  step  away  from  the  simplicity  of 
noise  and  toward  the  complexity  of  music. 
We  should  be  discarding  machinery  in  favour 
of  art. 

And,  again,  think  of  the  hideousness  of  our 
streets,  —  our  rows  and  rows  of  brownstone 
fronts,  as  you  look  down  the  side  streets  on 
the  way  up-town,  —  every  house  exactly  like  \ 
its  neighbour,  and  every  street  almost  exactly  '' 
like  the  next.  There  is  monotonous  simplic- 
ity for  you,  and  the  result  is  deadly.  Now 
if  every  house  were  given  a  beautiful  and 
individual  character  of  its  own,  and  that  char- 
acter so  modified  as  to  conform  to  its  neigh- 
bours, how  fine  a  block  you  might  have  I  And, 
further,  if  each  block  were  made  to  harmo- 
nize to  some  extent  with  those  about  it,  how 
fine  a  cityl    Again,  in  each  step  of  improve- 

221 


ment  we  should  be  advancing  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  from  chaos  to  art.     For  art 
;  is  not  the  antithesis  of  nature ;  but  nature  and 
art   are  both   the   antithesis  of  chaos.    It  is 
^when  we  give  up  loving  care  and  put  our  trust 
>in  machinery  that  we  begin  to  move  back- 
ward to  monotony,  simplicity,  ugliness,  and 
death. 

If  we  would  remedy  the  annoyance  of  city 
life,  we  must  be  willing  to  take  thought  for 
it.  We  must  be  willing  to  spend  time  and 
trouble  and  money  in  order  to  have  music 
instead  of  noise  in  our  car  bells,  in  order  to 
have  beauty  instead  of  simplicity  in  our  archi- 
tecture. 

Now  if  you  think  you  can  solve  the  prob- 
lem of  modern  life  for  yourself  by  withdraw- 
ing from  the  fray,  you  are  mistaken.  You 
may  set  up  your  studio  in  the  top  of  a  twenty- 
story  building,  and  moon  there  over  your 
,'  emasculate  daubs,  while  the  twentieth  cen- 
>(  tury  is  racing  beneath  your  feet;  but  you 
will  never  lay  on  a  brushful  of  paint  that  will 

222 


stay.    There  is  a  lot  of  dirty  work  to  be  done 
in  the  world  yet,  and,  if  we  are  not  fitted  to  \ 
help  in  it,  we  must  at  least  stand  by  and  give 
it  our  sympathy. 

Then  in  the  realm  of  art  itself,  it  is  not  i 
simplicity  we  admire,  but  harmonious  unity,  f 
the  complex  blending  of  colours  and  tones. 
Simplicity  would  mean  the  crude  juxtaposi- 
tion of  one  raw  colour  by  another,  the  striking 
of  one  note  without  regard  to  its  fellow.    And 
in  poetry,  when  you  pass  from  the  regularity 
of  the  school  of  Pope  to  the  apparently  freer 
metrical  usage  of  Wordsworth  and  Tennyson 
and  Keats,  you  fancy  at  first  that  you  are  re- 
turning to  simpler  methods;    and  when  you 
come  to  Emerson  and  Whitman,  you  say  you 
have  reached  simplicity  itself.     But  that  is 
exactly  the  reverse  of  the  truth.    The  cadences  \ 
of  "  Leaves  of  Grass "  are  far  more  intricate     v 
than  those  of  "  The  Essay  on  Man."  / 

The  only  simplicity  that  is  desirable  is  sim- 
plicity of  soul,  a  certain  singleness  of  aim  and 
quiet  detachment  of  vision,  a  mood  of  endur- 

223 


STi&t  SfvitnXfuf^ip  of  ^rt 

ing  repose  not  at  variance  with  constant  en- 
deavour, a  habit  of  content,  contemplation, 
and  peace,  that  abides  undistracted  in  har- 
mony with  other  habits  of  activity  and  toil. 
This  is  not  the  simplicity  of  chaos,  but  the 
simplicity  of  order,  the  assurance  that  comes 
from  the  perception  of  law  and  the  triumph 
of  beauty.  This  is  the  higher  simplicity,  the 
simplicity  of  nature  and  mathematics,  which 
comprehends  their  many  complexities  in  a 
unity  of  being. 


224 


CJe  Ma^it  of  tjje  WaotnQ 


Sometimes  I  think  we  feel  it  most  power- 
fully when  it  comes  upon  us  afresh,  as  we 
emerge  from  thronging  streets  some  morning 
in  spring;  indeed,  even  on  the  street  corners 
themselves  it  may  overtake  us  suddenly  in 
the  April  twilight,  in  a  bunch  of  mayflowers 
or  a  pussy-willow  spray.  Then  how  quickly 
the  humdrum  and  soil  of  habit  are  forgotten! 
We  are  reinstated  instantly  with  the  zest  of 
a  primitive  unjaded  life,  and  are  almost  will- 
ing to  declare  that  existence  has  no  other  end 
than  this  in-rush  of  joy,  this  conversion  in  the 
blood.  It  seems  to  justify  the  narrow  plod- 
ding to  which  we  have  been  confined  all  the 
gray  days  of  winter,  and  to  heighten  our  ap- 
preciation of  a  freedom  of  spirit,  which,  we 
know  now,  is  ours  by  right  of  inheritance. 

225 


The  coming  of  spring,  say  the  wise  to  them- 
selves, is  the  mystic  book  of  revelation  in  the 
great  volume  of  nature,  the  superb  transcend- 
ent note,  reassuring  doubt,  dissolving  fear, 
establishing  happiness  for  ever  and  ever. 
And  there  is  nothing  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June, 
partly  because  we  reach  it  through  blizzard 
and  fog  and  east  wind,  through  toil  and  forti- 
tude and  iron  persistence. 

And  then,  again,  it  seems,  at  the  end  of 
summer,  as  if  the  true  magic  of  the  woods 
were  only  put  forth  after  long  reserve,  slowly, 
timorously,  shyly  exerting  over  us  its  most 
potent  influence.  There  are  hints  and  signs, 
now  and  then,  indeed,  which  make  the  care- 
less wonder  whether  he  has  seen  any  touch 
of  the  true  magic  of  the  woods  at  all.  Per- 
haps once  or  twice  between  August  and  De- 
cember the  exact  moment  may  occur  for  the 
tireless  observer  when  glimpses  of  the  un- 
worldliness  of  nature  may  come  to  him,  and 
he  may  hear  or  think  he  hears  the  glad  orac- 
ular whisper  of  the  universal  message.     He 

226 


may  then  have  the  rare  fortune  (in  perfect 
health,  in  perfect  goodness,  of  a  sound  mind) 
to  feel  himself  for  an  instant  in  complete  har- 
mony with  all  being.  He  is  no  longer  a  jar- 
ring note  in  a  splendid  theme;  no  longer 
knows  himself  somehow  at  variance  with  his 
surroundings;  no  longer  perceives  the  gulf 
between  ideal  and  fact,  wish  and  perform- 
ance; but  from  a  profound  inexplicable  con- 
tent is  only  able  to  say: 

"  Beauty  through  my  senses  stole; 
I  yielded  myself  to  the  perfect  whole." 

I  do  not  mean  to  speak  in  fables;  I  only 
refer  to  those  experiences  of  the  magic  of 
nature  which  we  all  have  had.  It  is  this  magic 
which  draws  us  out  of  the  city  and  away  from 
our  palaces  of  art  back  to  the  fundamental 
and  sincere.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  our  cry 
for  simplicity,  our  cry  for  recreation  and  rest. 
It  is  the  magic  of  the  woods  which  makes  the 
essence  of  our  summer  holiday  and  infuses 
us  anew  with  the  inspiring  taste  of  real  life. 

227 


And  even  if  the  utmost  wonder  of  that  magic 
is  hidden  from  us,  there  still  remains  the 
wholesome  touch  of  an  unsophisticated  mode 
of  life. 

There  we  have  a  palpable  secret  to  take 
home  with  us.  If  the  woods  will  not  tell  us 
what  their  magic  really  is,  they  certainly  offer 
us  a  comment  on  our  own  life.  In  running 
away  from  the  forms  of  civilization  to  the 
refuge  of  nature  we  do  well.  But  why?  Be- 
cause nature  is  greater  and  better  than  man 
with  his  art?  Not  at  all ;  simply  because  all 
of  nature  is  good,  while  much  of  our  own 
art  of  living  is  lamentably  bad.  And  we  make 
a  grievous  error  if  we  attempt  to  love  nature 
to  the  total  exclusion  of  the  civilized  and 
civilizing  arts.  Nature  is  inexorable,  but 
man's  art  is  tentative  and  haphazard.  It  is 
seldom  perfect;  it  is  nearly  always  a  com- 
promise or  a  makeshift.  Nature's  laws  are 
established;  the  future  of  man  is  still  prob- 
lematical. It  follows  that  nothing  in  nature 
can  be  rejected  or  despised,  while  much  in 

228 


our  civilization  is  to  be  improved  or  dis- 
carded altogether.  And  what  we  are  to  bring 
home  from  nature  is  the  large  temper  of  pa- 
tience. We  are  not  to  return  to  the  artificial 
mode  of  life  with  scorn  for  its  artificiality, 
but  with  love  for  its  art.  It  took  nature  un- 
counted aeons  to  get  as  far  as  primitive  man; 
but  man  in  a  single  year,  by  comparison,  has 
achieved  his  splendid  art  of  life.  All  that  is 
most  worth  living  for  is  as  much  the  gift  of 
art  as  of  nature.  Nature  gave  us  the  impulse, 
the  joy,  the  power;  but  we  have  given  our- 
selves the  means  of  making  these  things  pre- 
vail. If  the  usual  course  of  life  as  we  know 
it  seems  to  us  futile  and  vapid  and  false,  that 
is  the  fault  of  a  bad  art  of  life.  Well,  then, 
let  us  get  a  better  art;  let  us  adjust  ourselves 
more  exactly  to  the  environment;  let  us  mod- 
ify both  desire  and  condition  until  they  coin- 
cide. Don't  let  us  waste  time  in  stupidly 
reviling  modern  life  as  artificial ;  let  us  make 
it  artistic.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  are 
to  import  more  of  the  fine  arts  into  our  lives, 

229 


but  that  we  are  to  evolve  a  fine  art  of  life 
itself,  as  a  nation  and  as  individuals.  If  a 
few  people  can  live  in  peace,  in  security,  with 
comfort  and  love  and  a  reasonable  amount  of 
freedom,  that  means  that  the  art  of  modern 
life  is  good  —  to  a  certain  extent.  When 
every  one  can  live  so,  it  will  mean  that  art 
has  improved  —  is  nearing  perfection.  It 
seems  to  me  that  at  the  summer's  end,  when 
we  can  say: 

"  My  heart  had  a  touch  of  the  woodland  time," 

the  greater  portion  of  that  experience  must 
result  in  a  renewal  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
beautiful  art  of  life,  an  impulse  of  generosity 
and  hope  for  others.  The  only  use  of  an  out- 
ing is  to  reinforce  one's  faith  for  the  next 
inning.  A  love  of  nature  can  surely  never 
make  a  man  either  a  morose  hermit  or  a  pre- 
cious aesthetic.  Rightly  loved,  nature  must 
make  us  more  resourceful  and  apt  in  the  prac- 
tice of  the  complex  art  of  living,  more  unex- 
acting  and  humane. 

230 


0f  Ctl^iliiatiott 


There  is  some  confusion,  is  there  not,  in 
our  minds  when  we  think  of  our  civilization, 
and  balance  its  benefits  against  its  perplex- 
ities, as  we  do?  Our  often  complaints  against 
it  may  be  justly  made  only  against  our  own 
misconception. 

In  moments  of  irritation  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  finding  fault  with  modern  civilization,  as 
we  call  it;  and  in  a  pique  we  turn  our  backs 
on  town  and  society  and  betake  ourselves  to 
more  or  less  sequestered  resorts  where  we 
promise  ourselves  the  enjoyment  of  nature 
and  a  return  to  simplicity.  But  in  reality  what 
we  are  fleeing  from  is  not  civilization  but  our 
own  vulgar  and  rather  stupid  multiplication 

231 


\ 


y 


2rj)e  Jfvimtfu'^ip  of  ^vt 

of  effects,  our  overelaborate  accumulation  of 
mere  machinery. 

Of  true  civilization  one  need  never  tire. 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  tire  of  it,  since 
civilization  is  a  state  of  growth,  —  is  the  con- 
stant actualization  of  our  best  ideals,  —  is 
nothing  more  than  the  realization  of  our  best 
selves. 

Civilization,  I  suppose,  is  the  best  we  can 

attain    in    our    progress    toward    perfection. 

That  road   is  long  and   difficult,   and   there 

are  many  illusions  in  the  way  to  delay  the 

traveller  and  turn  him  aside.     Not  the  least 

of  these  illusions  are  things,  gross  material 

^  possessions,  which  we   deem   at  times   quite 

necessary  to  our  comfort  and  which  we  come 

to  count  as  an  essential  factor  in  civilized  life. 

/But  material  possessions  are  only  means  to  an 

jjend;    and  it  depends  entirely  on  our  use  of 

Jthem  whether  or  not  they  aid  us  in  the  task 

I  of  civilizing  our  life.    A  Bushman  is  not  civ- 

lized  merely  by  being  placed  in  a  palace  or 

in  a  luxurious  New  York  hotel;   though  de- 

232 


cent  and  comfortable  surroundings  are  an 
almost  essential  help  in  humanizing  the  spirit. 
Nor  could  a  civilized  man  like  Lincoln  or 
Marcus  Aurelius  or  John  Wesley  be  made 
barbarous  by  being  housed  in  a  cave  or  a 
tepee.  In  fact,  in  the  first  case,  the  palace 
or  the  hotel  might  be  eminently  glaring  and 
hideous  and  debasing  to  the  spirit,  in  spite 
of  all  its  luxury,  while  in  the  second  case  our 
civilized  tenant  of  the  cave  could  more  read- 
ily give  his  own  complexion  to  his  surround- 
ings for  the  time  being. 

The  case  is  simply  this:  In  our  task  of 
civilizing  ourselves  there  are  certain  neces- 
sities of  the  animal  man  that  must  be  met,  \. 
that  remain  constant,  whatever  his  state.  He  ■ 
must  be  housed  and  clothed  and  fed.  His 
children  must  be  reared  and  trained,  and 
provision  must  be  made  against  sickness  and 
incapacity.  Now,  the  means  which  man 
takes  to  do  these  few  things  are  infinitely 
various.  He  may  do  them  very  simply,  as 
the  Indians  used  to  do  them,  and  as  the  Afri- 

233 


can  and  the  Eskimo  still  does  them;  or  he 
may  do  them  with  enormous  elaboration  and 
multiplicity  of  detail,  as  the  Londoner  and 
the  New  Yorker  does  them  to-day.  But  it  is 
to  be  noted  that  the  manner  of  doing  these 
things  is  not  in  any  way  an  essential  part  of 
civilization.  A  man  may  have  at  his  com- 
mand all  the  luxuries  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, and  still  lack  all  the  rudiments  of  civili- 
zation. Almost  any  thoughtful  person  will 
acknowledge  this  strange  confusion  of  ideas 
of  ours,  and  yet  it  is  because  we  continually 
confuse  material  prosperity  with  spiritual  and 
intellectual  progress  that  we  are  so  retarded 


( 


in  the  path  to  perfection. 

Evidently  it  is  only  common  sense  that  we 
should  get  our  necessary  man's  work  done  as 
quickly  and  easily  as  possible.  To  be  fed 
and  clothed  and  housed  is  the  prime  consid- 
eration. Very  well,  then,  let  us  have  this  done 
with  utmost  expedition.  Let  us  invent  all 
manner  of  contrivances  of  wood  and  iron  and 
steam  and  electricity  to  save  ourselves  labour 

234 


m  emimtion 

in  providing  these  common  requirements. 
Surely  we  have  worked  marvels  of  ingenuity 
in  that  direction !  But  what  then?  How  shall 
we  employ  ourselves?  What  shall  we  do  nX 
when  these  first  human  wants  are  satisfied? 
Shall  we  go  on  elaborating  the  means  of  liv- 
ing, or  shall  we  devote  some  time  to  life  itself,  J 
to  civilizing  ourselves? 

After  a  certain  point  is  reached,  the  in- 
crease of  material  possessions  is  a  palpable 
burden,  a  mere  incumbrance  to  us  in  our  at- 
tempt to  civilize  and  humanize  existence. 
To  command  happiness  in  my  life,  I  must 
be  master  of  conditions,  so  far  as  I  can.  I 
must  have  within  my  power  the  means  of  sat- 
isfying my  needs.  I  must  have,  if  you  will, 
the  luxuries  of  the  day.  But  if  I  simply  keep 
on  multiplying  my  physical  needs,  so  that  it 
absorbs  all  my  energy  to  satisfy  them,  I  am 
no  longer  a  master  of  conditions,  but  their 

slave.     I  do  not  command  my  wants;    my 

—  ,  -^ 

wants  command  me.     The  essential  man  inv 

me  is  arrested  and  absorbed  in  mere  means  of 

235 


5rj|f  jfvitnXf&'^ip  of  ^rt 

living,  and  has  no  energy  nor  intelligence  left 
for  living  itself. 

But  all  the  while  it  is  folly  to  turn  our  back 
on  civilization.    For  in  all  this  great  mass  of 
material    prosperity    is    hidden    the    leisure 
which  can  make  a  higher  civilization  possi- 
ble.   And  if  I  find  city  life  a  burden  because 
of  its  endless  demands  and  material  engross- 
ments, I  am  not,  therefore,  to  become  an  em- 
bittered faultfinder  with  my  age.     It  were 
more  sensible  to  take  moderately  from  the 
abundant  store  which  modern  ingenuity  has 
provided,  and,  having  simplified  my  needs, 
f  devote  mysel-f  to  beautifying  my  inner  life, 
I  and  to  making  life  about  me  more  interesting 
^and  happy.     For  so  I  shall  be  forwarding 
civilization  —  by  civilizing  myself  and  those 
with  whom  I  must  come  in  contact,  not  by 
overloading  myself  with  endless  elaborations. 
Possessions   are   good   and   delightful   and 
'  necessary.     But  they  are  only  good  and  de- 
lightful and  necessary  in  so  far  as  they  min- 
ister to  happiness.    They  cannot  of  themselves 

236 


m  emumton 

give  us  happiness ;  they  can  only  give  the  pos- 
sibility of  happiness  and  immunity  from  want.  ^ 
It  is  we  ourselves  who  must  distil  from  this 
immunity  and  possibility  the  honey  of  joy 
which  we  all  desire. 

Civilization  does  not  reside  in  all  those 
things  which  we  give  our  lives  so  breathlessly 
to  obtain;  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  hearts  of 
our  friends,  in  the  thought  and  science  and 
art  of  the  day.  And  if  the  civilization  of  my 
time  seem  to  me  hard  and  mean  and  material- 
istic, the  fault  is  probably  in  my  own  mind  as 
much  as  in  my  neighbour's  millions. 


237 


^mintss  anb  Mtmty 


We  are  told  so  constantly  and  so  insistently 
that  business  is  the  chief  concern  of  life  that 
it  almost  comes  to  seem  true.  And,  indeed,  it 
is  not  altogether  healthy,  nor  the  mark  of  a 
strong  man,  always  to  be  setting  one's  face 
against  the  drift  and  tendency  of  one's  own 
M  time,  —  always  to  be  a  faultfinder,  a  prophet 
•^  of  ill,  a  censor,  a  petty  cynic.  It  is  better  to 
temper  such  a  critical  spirit  with  something 
of  the  spirit  of  one's  own  time,  if  that  time 
have  in  it  anything  at  all  of  honesty,  of  vigour, 
of  helpfulness. 

It  is  well  to  think  little  of  the  boastful  and 
ruthless  industrialism  which  engulfs  our  life; 
it  is  well  to  look  upon  patriotism  and  find  it 
only  a  second-rate  virtue;  it  is  well  to  detest 

238 


strife  and  war  and  vulgar  commercial  ag- 
grandizement. And  yet  a  man  must  have  a 
poor  spirit  never  to  have  loved  his  own  coun-  > 
try;  never  to  have  set  his  nerve  to  acquire* 
some  longed-for  end,  against  odds  and  obsta- 
cles and  disappointments  and  disastrous  fate; 
and  never  to  have  desired  for  himself  and  his 
own  a  good  meal  and  a  soft  bed. 

There  must  surely  have  been  few  periods 
in  history  which  could  not  have  yielded  some- 
thing wholesome  and  inspiring  to  those  who 
lived  in  them,  and  which  cannot  teach  us  even 
now  strange  and  vigorous  lessons  in  life.    And  v 
the  prime  wisdom  of  to-day,  as  of  every  dayv 
of  the  world,  is  to  perceive  wherein  its  dis-  v 
tinction  and  virtue  lie,  to  mark  its  best  charac-  ^/ 
teristic,  and  to  cultivate  whatever  of  good  it  ^ 
presents  to  us.     Always  and  in  all  things  to  ^ 
feel  one's  self  out  of  accord  with  one's  own 
time  is  as  grave  a  fault  as  it  would  be  for 
an  apple  to  feel  itself  out  of  accord  with  its 
orchard,  or  for  a  frog  to  feel  himself  out  of 
accord  with  his  pool.    It  is  admirable  to  have 

239 


mental  detachment,  and  to  be  superior  to  the 
jolt  and  jargon  of  the  days.  It  is  folly  to  miss 
their  sweetness,  their  strength,  their  far-see- 
ing endurance,  and  the  patient  repose  which 
underlies  their  distraction,  their  dissipation, 
their  blind  hurry. 

Our  judgment  must  be  critical;    our  tem- 
perament must  be  appreciative.    To  cultivate 
the  first  to  the  exclusion  of  the  second  is  to 
become  a  confirmed  pessimist.     To  indulge 
the  second  to  the  exclusion  of  the  first  is  to 
become  a  complacent  and  fatuous  optimist. 
I  You  have  your  choice  between  a  pedant's  hell 
I  and  a  fool's  paradise.     The  wise  man  is  he 
who  sets  himself  to  cultivate  both  faculties 
—  the  heart  that  always  loves,  the  mind  that 
iis  never  deceived.    Nor  are  they  in  the  least 
inconsistent;     for    the    more   we   know   and 
understand,    the   more   wonderfully  can   we 
love  and  enjoy;    and  the  more  we  love  and 
are  glad,  the  better  can  we  comprehend. 

To  know,  to  appreciate,  and  to  do  —  this  is 
perhaps  the  whole  business  of  life.    To  know 

240 


the  truth,  to  appreciate  the  best,  to  do  what 
is  beautiful  is  a  threefold  task  that  may  well 
tax  our  most  persistent  and  unflagging  ener- 
gies through  however  long  a  lifetime;  and 
it  would  seem  as  if  the  whole  effort  of  the 
universe  were  to  make  possible  that  consum- 
mation. If  ever  we  approach  it,  we  shall 
know  by  the  test  of  happiness  that  we  are  near 
the  enchanted  ground,  the  garden  of  the  gods, 
the  fairy-land  that  actually  exists. 

Making  all  allowances,  then,  for  the  folly 
of  the  overcritical  spirit,  it  still  remains  true 
that  in  criticism  we  must  first  of  all  be  skep- 
tical  of  things  as  they  are,  and  to  the  last  put 
forth  all  endeavour  to  learn  where  and  why 
and  how  they  are  to  be  improved.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  critical  spirit  not  only  to  see  things 
as  they  are,  but  to  see  them  as  they  ought  to 
be;  just  as  it  is  the  duty  of  the  imaginative 
and  creative  spirit,  not  only  to  see  them  as 
they  ought  to  be,  but  to  bring  them  into  ac- 
cord with  that  more  perfect  arrangement.  It 
is  safe  enough  to  say,  therefore,  that  it  is  bad 
V    241 


^f^t  :ffvitnXfuf^i9  of  ^tt 

for  us  to  be  given  to  self-laudation  in  criti- 
cism, and  that  the  more  severe  arraignment 
we  make  of  ourselves  and  our  progress  the 
better,  so  that  our  sight  may  be  clear  and  our 
foresight  touched  with  purpose. 

Perhaps  the  most  sweeping  accusation  that 
can  be  made  against  us  as  a  people  to-day 
is  to  say  that  we  care  overmuch  for  business 
and  overlittle  for  beauty.  It  is  an  accusation 
which  is  painfully  trite,  but  it  is  one  that  needs 
to  be  kept  alive,  none  the  less.  For  as  we 
make  toward  the  goal  of  material  supremacy, 
we  may  be  in  danger,  in  ever-increasing  dan- 
ger, of  missing  the  only  goal  of  all  ultimate 
supremacy,  —  the  realization  of  a  supreme 
manhood.  Think  of  the  increasing  stress  that 
is  being  laid  upon  wealth  in  the  popular  mind, 
calculated  to  debase  its  ideals,  to  confirm  it 
in  its  errors,  to  make  it  content  with  its  gross 
and  brutalizing  standards!  Think  of  asking 
whether  it  is  well  for  a  business  man  to  be 
college  bred!  Where  does  any  one  suppose 
the  United  States  would  be  to-day  if  our  fore- 

242 


fathers  had  thought  it  was  just  as  well  for 
a  farmer  or  a  blacksmith  not  to  know  how  to 
read?    Can  any  one  look  carefully  at  modern 
industrial  enterprise  (to  say  nothing  of  nobler 
activities  of  our  day)   and  declare  that  it  is 
not  due  to  the  democratizing  of  intelligence 
and  education?    If  a  college  education  unfits 
a  man  for  business,  then  there  is  either  some- 
thing   wrong    with    business    or    something 
wrong  with    the   education.     The   truth   is,  y 
probably,  that  there  is  something  wrong  with^ 
both.     There  certainly  is  something  wrong 
with  an  education  which  attempts  to  culti- 
vate a  man's  mind  and  body,  without  once      / 
perceiving  any  essential  connection  and  inter-  ^ 
dependence  between  the  two  processes,  and 
which  omits  all  spiritual  culture  entirely.    By : 
spiritual  culture   I   do  not  mean  a  training^ 
in  morals;    I  mean  a  training  and  develop- 
ing of  a  whole  spiritual  nature,  which  is  the  / 
seat  and  origin  of  all  creative  energy,  of  all  | 
initiation,  of  imagination,  of  artistic  impulse 
and  activity.    The  average  education  is  faulty^ 

243 


because  it  contents  itself  with  enlarging  the 
receptive  faculties,  powers  of  thought  and 
reason  and  memory,  and  does  nothing  to  en- 
large the  faculties  of  self-expression,  of  use- 
fulness, of  helpfulness,  because  it  gives  us  a 
mass  of  knowledge  and  no  instruction  in  the 
use  of  that  knowledge;  because  it  gives  us 
gigantic  muscles,  but  never  tells  us  what  to 
do  with  them.  Just  one-half  of  man's  needs 
are  forgotten,  and  instead  of  turning  out  men, 
we  turn  out  pedants  and  football  players,  the 
one  as  useless  as  the  other,  and  both  an  encum- 
brance to  the  community  and  to  themselves. 
Certainly  one  would  not  wish  to  have  the 
standard  of  scholarship  lowered,  or  the  num- 
ber of  scholars  diminished;  but,  also,  quite 
as  certainly  one  would  wish  to  have  their  in- 
creased powers  directed  and  given  self-con- 
trol, and  to  have  them  balanced  by  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  life. 

And  the  possibilities  of  life  are  certainly 
not  limited  to  the  exigent  demands  of  busi- 
ness.   Any  man  who  is  a  "  business  man  pure 

244 


and  simple,"  as  it  is  called,  is  just  so  much 
less  a  man.  Just  as  a  scholar  who  is  nothing 
but  a  scholar,  or  an  athlete  who  is  nothing 
but  an  athlete,  is  just  so  much  less  a  man. 

If  our  enormously  developing  business  de-\ 
mands  more  and  more  men  who  are  merely 
specialists,  and  who  must  be  trained  from 
early  boyhood  to  fit  them  for  the  severe  com- 
petition, you  may  say,  so  much  the  better  for 
business;  but  I  say,  so  much  the  worse  for 
the  nation.  Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone 
now  any  more  than  he  ever  did.    Less,  indeed 

It  is  just  as  needful  for  a  nation  as  for  an 
individual  to  remember  that  the  life  is  more 
than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment.  And 
a  people  that  becomes  forgetful  of  the  de-^ 
lights  of  beauty  is  in  danger  of  becoming  for-v 
getful  of  the  delights  of  life.  Captains  of 
industry  are  useful  members  of  society,  for 
the  time  being  at  all  events,  but  they  are  not 
more  useful  than  captains  of  intellect  or  mas- 
ters of  an  art.  We  must  not  let  ourselves 
forget  that.    We  must  keep  always  in  mind 

245 


'J 


the  ideals  of  intelligence  and  culture  and  lib- 
erty whereto  we  were  born;  we  must  see  to 
it  that  they  are  never  tarnished  by  the  breath 
of  a  too-evident  prosperity.  But  all  the  while, 
of  course,  we  must  keep  our  ideals  with  a 
poised  and  serene  mind,  and  confront  their 
antagonists  with  refutation,  not  with  dispar- 
agement. We  shall  have  something  to  learn, 
even  from  a  nation  of  ironmongers.  And  we 
should  have  much  to  teach  them.  It  should 
be  exemplified  in  our  own  conduct  of  life 
that  beauty  is  not  less  important  than  busi- 
ness in  the  making  of  a  people. 


246 


€i)e  llati)0  af  Peace 


It  is  the  eve  of  the  gladdest  festival  of  the 
year,  the  day  set  apart  as  a  memorial  to  that 
serene  and  beautiful  Being  whom  his  fol- 
lowers delight  to  call  the  Prince  of  Peace. 
So  old  and  beloved  is  the  holiday  that  the 
mere  word  Christmas  itself  is  more  rich  in 
the  aroma  of  kindly  and  moving  associations 
than  any  effusion  of  yours  or  mine  could  be. 

As  children  we  innocently  believed  in  the 
little  round-bellied  chimney  god  and  the  good 
persecuted  Martyr  of  Calvary  with  equal  rev- 
erence. He  who  filled  our  stockings  with 
candy  and  toys  and  gilded  baubles  was  quite 
as  generous,  and  much  more  real,  than  He 
who  guarded  and  loved  our  souls.  In  the 
early  dark  hours  did  we  not  wake  up  and 
stealthily  feel  each  stocking  toe-tip?     And 

247 


2rtie  iFti(nlr)$tit|i  of  Mvt 

were  they  not  actually  stuffed  with  the  long- 
desired  treasures?  Could  any  proof  be 
stronger?  And  then  in  a  few  years,  as  the 
cold  suspicion  of  truth  stole  over  the  child 
mind  like  an  autumn  frost,  and  good  St.  Nick 
was  discovered  to  be  a  myth,  did  we  not 
silently  try  to  perpetuate  the  crumbling 
dogma?  That  all  his  miraculous  kindliness 
should  be  only  the  work  of  our  parents,  after 
all,  was  too  sad  to  be  believed.  The  frail 
tissue  of  fable  on  which  we  had  so  confidingly 
relied  was  far  too  lovely  to  be  ruthlessly 
destroyed  by  any  prosy  fact;  and  there  stole 
over  our  perception,  I  think,  a  sort  of  sadness 
at  the  disillusion,  so  that  we  would  not  will- 
ingly admit  even  to  ourselves  that  the  delight- 
ful and  impossible  children's  paradise  was  at 
an  end.  It  was,  though ;  and  in  time  we  came 
to  substitute  an  understanding  human  love  of 
those  who  cared  for  us  for  the  ruined  fairy- 
tale of  Santa  Claus  and  his  Christmas  team. 
It  was  good  to  have  something  to  take  the 
place  of  that  which  we  had  lost 

248 


STfie  ]9a(tf|fii  of  3S^tmt 

There  are  many  grown-up  children  who 
do  not  write  letters  to  Santa  Claus  and  post 
them  in  the  empty  fireplace  any  longer;  who 
have  discarded  the  doctrine  of  the  fireside 
Christmas  Eve  divinity  with  much  superior- 
ity; who  would  scorn  to  hang  a  stocking  by 
their  bed  to-morrow  night;  who  would  scoff 
at  the  idea  that  it  might  be  filled  once  again, 
if  only  they  wished  hard  enough;  and  who 
none  the  less  will  go  to  their  temples  on  Christ- 
mas Day  with  the  unshaken  hallucination  that 
the  Great  Orderer  of  the  universe  is  to  be 
influenced  by  many  solicitations.  It  may  be 
so;  it  may  be  that  this  round  world  is  ruled 
by  some  great  cosmic  Santa  Claus  who  doles 
out  blessings  while  we  are  unaware,  and  is 
swayed  by  the  urgent  supplications  of  his 
children.  I  have  my  doubts.  I  have  a  sus- 
picion that  this,  too,  is  no  more  than  a  nursery 
tale,  though  a  decent  reverence  for  all  ancient 
beauty  makes  us  shrink  from  acknowledging 
the  infatuation  even  to  ourselves. 

When  the  myth  of  the  good  St.  Nicholas 
249 


had  to  be  destroyed,  in  the  interests  of  so- 
called  education  and  truth,  still  there  re- 
mained behind  the  poetic  symbol,  the  solid 
though  less  attractive  fact  of  human  parental 
care  and  loving  kindness.  But  whtn  you  take 
aw^ay  the  greater  myth  of  the  St.  Nicholas  for 
grown-ups,  on  what  fact  am  I  to  rely?  Is 
that,  too,  merely  a  symbol  of  human  love  and 
the  kindliness  of  our  own  hearts?  Among 
the  marvels  of  science  is  that  contrivance 
which  from  an  elaborate  sort  of  magic  lan- 
tern casts  moving  and  lifelike  pictures  upon 
a  curtain  for  our  edification.  Is  the  matter 
of  our  destiny  some  such  enormous  shadow 
cast  upon  the  curtain  of  the  universe  from  the 
tiny  luminous  point  of  mortal  soul?  Still, 
how  wonderful  the  mechanism  must  be!  And 
who  invented  that? 

Well,  perhaps  it  is  not  important,  after  all. 
I  am  quite  sure  that  our  good  friend  from 
Nazareth  would  care  very  little  how  you  ex- 
plained him  or  the  Father  he  talked  about, 
so  long  as  you  cherished  his  teaching.     We 

250 


have  hardly  come  to  that  yet;  we  cannot 
practise  universal  love.  But  at  least  we  can 
profess  it.     I  suppose  that  is  something. 

Meanwhile,  for  this  day  and  year,  our  fes- 
tival of  peace  is  rudely  disturbed.  Dream  as 
we  will  of  the  spread  of  the  kingdom  of  love, 
the  old  custom  of  bloodshed  remains.  We 
be  Christians  in  name,  but  Jehovists  and 
Norse  pagans  in  reality.  Who  are  the  ex- 
ponents of  modern  Christianity?  The  Anglo- 
Saxons.  And  now,  at  the  dawn  of  the  last 
year  of  nineteen  Christian  centuries,  one 
branch  of  that  dominant  race  is  treading  on 
a  feeble  Oriental  people,  while  its  sister 
branch  is  waging  desperate  war  with  a  stub- 
born foe  in  Africa.  Is  this  any  better  than 
a  Roman  or  a  Macedonian  campaign?  You 
say  the  English  and  the  Americans  have  right 
on  their  side,  and  justice,  and  the  good  of  the 
world?  Yes,  but  how  can  love  fight  at  all? 
Christ  never  resisted;  he  didn't  believe  in 
resistance.  Probably  he  was  in  error.  If  not, 
how,  then,  can  you  justify  your  profession  of 

251 


his  doctrine  while  you  are  violating  its  letter 
and  spirit? 

It  is  the  old  dilemma;  the  battle  is  to  the 
strong,  and  the  strong  are  only  made  through 
battle;  then  how  shall  we  preserve  our  in- 
tegrity as  men,  and  yet  allow  wars  to  cease? 
The  law  of  life  is  that  it  shall  live  by  strife; 
the  life  that  ceases  to  strive  dies  of  decay. 
Then,  perhaps,  we  may  eliminate  hate  with- 
out eliminating  strife.  It  is  said  that  the 
hunter  does  not  hate  the  animal  he  kills  —  not 
always.  Perhaps  we  shall  some  day  actually 
come  to  love  our  enemies,  as  we  were  advised 
to  do  so  long  ago. 


252 


^  C!)tistmfl0  UtHm 


When  the  first  daring  missionaries,  full 
of  zeal  for  the  new  creed,  set  forth  from  Rome 
to  carry  the  glad  tidings  into  old  Britain,  they 
found  there  a  race  just  budding  into  civiliza- 
tion. They  must  have  had  much  the  same 
feeling  toward  the  inhabitants  of  that  far-off 
province  that  we  find  in  ourselves  toward  the 
dwellers  in  Darkest  Africa  or  the  Islands  of 
the  Utmost  Sea.  Buoyed  by  an  unquestioning 
faith,  they  went  fearlessly  forward  to  carry 
the  Word,  the  only  truth,  to  those  who  sat  in 
impenetrable  darkness,  as  it  seemed  to  them. 
There  could  be  no  question  in  their  mind  as 
to  the  saving  value  of  the  new  belief.  They 
preached  with  conviction  and  warmth,  be- 
cause they  believed  with  fervour  and  without 

253 


2rfie  iFt(tnlrsf|(|i  of  ^tt 

equivocation.  And  it  would  hardly  occur  to 
them  to  look  for  anything  of  good  in  the  an- 
cient earthly  beliefs  they  were  so  eager  to 
supplant.  With  that  singleness  of  purpose, 
that  persistency  of  sublime  confidence  to 
which  nothing  is  denied,  they  went  about 
their  task  with  unquenchable  ardour  and  de- 
cision. A  mere  handful  of  devoted  souls  at 
first,  following  the  footsteps  of  the  chosen 
Twelve  to  whom  the  Message  was  originally 
entrusted,  they  went  cheerfully  about  the 
business  of  persuading  the  known  world  to 
their  way  of  thinking.  How  well  they  suc- 
ceeded, let  modern  civilization  attest. 

Let  us  never  depreciate  the  power  of  so 
supreme  a  faith,  a  devotion  so  consuming 
and  so  noble;  for  that  is  the  very  spirit  we 
need  at  all  times,  a  spirit  of  hopeful  belief 
in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  ideals.  But  we 
have  come  at  this  end  of  time  to  look  upon  the 
earth  and  our  own  history  with  a  more  dis- 
passioned  eye,  and  to  regard  the  events  of  our 
racial  evolution  with  a  certain  mental  detach- 

254 


ment,  which  we  call  the  scientific  spirit.  And 
that  is  well,  too ;  for  we  must  have  the  abso- 
lute truth,  at  all  costs,  for  our  peace  of  mind, 
just  as  we  need  ultim^ate  goodness  for  our 
peace  of  heart,  and  utmost  beauty  for  our 
enjoyment  of  life.  We  have  come  to  see  in 
the  outworn  religions  of  the  earth  which 
Christianity  has  supplanted,  not  mere  heathen- 
ish superstition,  but  the  first  crude  efiforts  of 
the  human  soul,  endeavouring  to  formulate 
its  instincts  for  righteousness,  its  intuitions 
of  the  sublime,  its  inherent  belief  in  a  divine 
origin  and  outcome  for  all  things.  The  beau- 
tiful gods  of  pagan  Greece,  whose  cult  has 
given  to  modern  art  and  literature  such  an 
immeasurable  stimulus;  the  pitiful  gods  of 
the  Polar  night;  the  subtle  and  still-living 
gods  of  the  mysterious  Orient;  the  lore  of 
all  these  human  creeds  is  not  to  be  despised, 
but  to  be  studied.  Very  likely  they  are  in- 
adequate in  their  conception  of  the  universe, 
and  unwise  in  many  of  their  moral  sanctions; 
still  they  stand  there  in  testimony  of  man^s 

255 


2ri&e  jffvittitinl^ip  of  ^tt 

reach  after  the  infinite.  Pan  and  Vesta  and 
Hanuman  and  the  unrecorded  divinities  of 
outlandish  tongues  are  neither  hateful  nor 
despicable,  but  only  imperfect.  They  are, 
surely  one  must  believe,  partial  revelations  of 
I  the  truer  Truth,  the  better  Goodness,  the  more 
timperishable  Beauty. 

So,  too,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  rude  wor- 
ship of  our  ancient  fathers  in  the  wilderness 
of  Britain,  little  as  we  know  of  it,  was  not 
without  lovely  traits  and  touches  of  aspira- 
tion. Those  watchers  who  gathered  to  see 
the  sun  rise  over  Stonehenge  last  midsum- 
mer day  must  have  been  impressed  by  a  sol- 
emn regard  for  the  old  druidical  faith  which 
planted  those  monoliths  in  their  significant 
ring,  so  that  the  great  light  of  day  at  his 
summer  solstice  enters  exactly  through  the 
door  of  that  primitive  temple.  Not  sun- 
worshippers,  perhaps,  but  nature-worship- 
pers our  fathers  must  have  been,  when  the 
new  teaching  came  to  them  in  their  island 
fastnesses.     In  the  names  Yule  and  Easter, 

256 


marking  certain  pagan  festivals  of  nature, 
vague  records  of  these  Northern  religions 
come  down  to  us,  and  upon  the  dates  of  those 
festivals  other  festivals  of  the  Christian  cult 
were  grafted.  So  that  when  we  celebrate  our 
winter  holiday,  we  are  not  merely  keeping  the 
memorial  of  Christ's  nativity,  but,  all  uncon- 
sciously, are  following  the  immemorial  rites 
of  an  earlier  custom,  strange  and  barbarous, 
yet  natural,  after  all. 

In  the  story  of  all  peoples  there  will  be 
things  too  far  off  to  be  remembered  save  in 
the  most  shadowy  tradition.  The  worship 
of  Linus  or  Adonis  among  the  earliest  Greeks 
is  surrounded  with  impenetrable  mystery.  It 
had  changed  and  been  lost  before  the  time 
of  records  began;  but  we  know  it  was  some- 
how typical  of  the  changing  seasons,  the  pulse 
of  life  and  death  through  the  revolving  year. 
We  may  fancy,  in  the  same  way,  that  the  most 
elemental  facts  of  nature,  the  waxing  and 
waning  of  the  days  from  summer  to  winter, 
the  perishing  of  the  year  at  autumn  and  its 

257 


^f^t  jfvitnXfuf^ip  of  ^tt 

revival  in  spring,  would  be  the  first  to  be 
celebrated  in  forms  of  worship  among  a  peo- 
ple so  dependent  on  the  favour  of  the  sun. 
They  would  see  in  the  great  luminary,  if  not 
a  divinity,  at  least  a  direct  administration  of 
the  Divine  Mind.  And,  as  it  passed  in  its 
huge  pendular  swing  from  solstice  to  solstice, 
from  the  long  days  of  an  English  June  to 
the  brief  and  reluctant  hours  of  the  shortest 
day  of  winter,  they  would  feel  their  depend- 
ence on  the  Unknown,  their  need  of  a  benefi- 
cent Providence,  their  pleasure  in  abundant 
warmth,  their  shrinking  at  the  pinch  of  cold, 
and  their  helplessness  before  the  vagaries  of 
every  season's  vicissitudes.  The  winds  and 
rains  of  spring,  with  the  returning  birds  in 
the  forest;  the  heats  of  summer  setting  all 
the  land  at  leisure;  the  ripening  of  fruits  in 
autumn;  these  things  would  make  their  hearts 
unfold.  The  generous  year  would  enter  their 
blood  to  mitigate  the  darker  strain  of  human 
sorrow  and  inexplicable  death.  They  would 
grasp  quickly  at  the  poetic  analogy  between 

258 


the  life  of  man  and  the  life  of  nature  through 
the  season's  progress.  Seeing  all  nature  die 
down  and  revive,  they  would  eagerly  guess 
at  a  future  for  the  soul,  an  eternal  spring- 
time supervening  upon  the  autumn  of  mor-/ 
tality. 

The  feast  of  Yule,  we  may  guess,  was  one 
of  merrymaking,  because  then  the  year  was 
at  its  bitterest,  hope  apparently  at  the  last 
ebb  with  the  ebbing  sun,  and  men,  therefore, 
driven  indoors  for  intercourse  and  entertain- 
ment. For  fro^t,  in  moderation,  is  a  great 
civilize r,  necessitating  the  home  and  the  .fire- 
side. It  is  difficult  to  play  the  vagrant  in  a 
country  where  you  cannot  sleep  under  the 
stars,  but  must  have  a  rooftree  above  you  and 
a  fire  to  keep  you  from  perishing.  It  is  in 
cold  countries  that  men's  energies  are  knit  up 
to  the  point  of  accomplishment,  and  their 
physique  tempered  and  hardened  to  endur- 
ance. Cold  that  congeals  the  ground  and  the 
running  streams,  consolidates  men,  too,  and 
favours  that  concerted  action  which  is  the 

259 


beginning  of  civic  liberty  and  free  institu- 
tions.   In  a  land  of  rigorous  climate  men  arc 
accustomed  to  struggle.    Their  life  from  day 
to  day  is  an  unremitting  warfare  with  the 
y  elements,  and  breeds  in  them  fortitude,  en- 
durance, resourcefulness,  and  a  light-hearted 
eagerness  to  cope  with  difficulty.    The  north 
wind,  whipping  about  their  ears,  stings  the 
blood   to   the   cheek,   stirring   courage   from 
the  bottom  of  the  heart  at  the  same  time;  and 
those  happiest  zones,  where  nature  is  neither 
so  bountiful  as  to  encourage  idleness,  nor  so 
bitter  as  to  discourage  and  stultify  growth, 
give  us  our  best  of  humanity. 
/    In  such  a  country  men  attain  a  certain  poise 
of  mind,  not  too  sober  nor  yet  too  frivolous, 
and  come  to  look  upon  the  world  with  dis- 
cretion,  with   serenity,   with    temperate   joy. 
j  Their  intimate  life  is  infused  with  a  tincture 
I  of  natural  piety,  unaffected  and  wholesome. 
SAnd   whatever    revealed    religion    (as    it   is 
f  called)   is  imported  to  their  shores  must  be 
coloured  and  modified  by  the  original  tern- 

260 


perament  of  the  race.  So  that  old  traditions 
and  customs  and  superstitjons  and  habits  of 
thought  are  found  surviving  amid  the  pure 
doctrines  of  nev^er  belief,  as  blackened  stumps 
survive  a  forest  Jftre  to  be  found  long  after- 
ward,  when  the  young  green  is  tall  and  lux- 
uriant all  about  them. 

In  every  Christian  land  there  are  customs 
and  tales  and  scraps  of  folk-lore,  held  in  pop- 
ular regard,  which  are  not  quite  believed, 
perhaps,  but  which  are  kept  alive  in  memory 
none  the  less.  They  are  surviving  remnants 
of  creeds  which  once  had  a  religious  value 
and  now  retain  no  more  than  a  sentiment  of  v/^ 
their  former  sanction.  They  may  once  have 
been  obligatory  as  a  duty,  a  votive  commem- 
oration, an  expiatory  offering;  but  their  ear- 
lier use  is  forgotten  and  we  cannot  tell  why 
we  observe  them  any  more,  —  so  tenacious 
are  we  of  forms  and  ceremonies,  so  oblivious 
of  spiritual  origins.  We  hang  up  our  childish 
stockings  for  the  good  little  saint  to  fill  with 
gifts  and  gewgaws,  or  wc  stick  a  spray  of 

261 


STfte  JFvimXfuf^ip  of  ^vt 

mistletoe  in  the  chandelier  —  a  dare  to  bash- 
ful youth  —  and  never  guess  how  came  these 
customs  nor  what  they  may  once  have  signi- 
fied. So  there  linger  about  all  the  festivals 
of  the  Church  —  Christmas,  St.  John's  Eve 
in  midsummer,  of  Hallowe'en  —  legends  and 
simple  rites,  which  are  lightly  held  memorials 
of  some  older  faith,  once,  perhaps,  significant 
and  stupendous.  For  religion  is  not  only 
rom  above  but  from  below  (if  we  may  per- 
mit ourselves  to  use  that  manner  of  speech), 
not  only  the  living  Word  sent  down  to  us 
from  the  clear  skies,  as  we  are  apt  to  fancy, 
but  the  whisper  breathed  from  the  ground 
as  well.  Whether  natural  or  revealed,  the 
source  of  our  religious  aspirations  is  the  same. 
The  eternal  spirit  utters  itself  obscurely  in 
the  dark  hearts  of  heathen  kings,  or  speaks  in 
articulate  clear  words  through  the  radiant 
iminds  of  chosen  seers  and  glowing  young 
(prophets,  with  equal  authority.  The  same 
jspirit  of  truthfulness,  desiring  only  that  beau- 
tiful goodness  should  be  accomplished  on  the 

262 


earth,  whispered  in  the  ear  of  Buddha,  dwelt  ; 
with  the  aged  John  in  Patmos,  was  a  law  of  j 
righteousness  to  the  King  Poet  of  Israel,  spoke 
in  accents  threatening  as  thunder  at  the  shrine 
of  Delphi,  and  makes  itself  heard  at  a  hun-j 
dred  unknown  altars  in  the  far  corners  of 
the  earth  to-day.    For  there  are  not  a  thousand : 
such,  but  only  One,  though  the  inventive  mind  j 
of  man  has  imagined  a  thousand  forms  in/ 
which  He  has  been  supposed  to  reside.    His\ 
true  residence,  all  the  while,  has  been  neither 
at  Paphos   nor  Cumae  nor  upon   Sinai,  but 

in  the  human  heart,  —  in  the  house  of  the. 

. —      -.  ■  ,.i  .1— ,1     -«■  — '  -y 

soul. 

A  Christmas  meditation  for  many  of  us 
must  partake  of  the  character  of  a  philosophic 
or  poetic  reverie,  rather  than  of  religious  ex- 
altation. The  touch  of  the  supernatural  has 
disappeared ;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  the 
feeling  of  wonder  has  vanished ;  it  only  means 
that  the  sentiment  of  worship  is  more  natural 
than  ever.  If  we  cannot  feel  the  awe  and 
terror  of  a  personal  Supervisor  of  the  uni- 

263 


fffte  iFtUntrstiiii  of  ^tt 

verse,  as  in  our  childhood,  we  can  feel  much 
more  certainly  and  definitely  the  presence  of 
./  an  unmeasured  Power  within  ourselves,  more 
real  and  beneficent  than  the  Deity  of  our  in- 
fant fancy. 

It  was  said  that  in  a  certain  house  there 
are  many  mansions;  and  I  cannot  help  be- 
lieving that  hospitable  edifice  is  designed  to 
shelter  the  unbeliever  as  well  as  the  believer. 
Indeed,  I  cannot  imagine  such  a  creature  as 
an  unbeliever,  though  many  there  be  (and 
excellent  souls,  too)  who  subscribe  to  none 
of  the  tenets  of  established  creeds.  I  must 
leave  to  others  the  expounding  of  Christian 
doctrine  as  upheld  by  this  church  or  that  with 
so  much  vigour  and  confidence,  and  content 
myself  with  the  modest  irresponsible  task  of 
looking  upon  the  teaching  of  the  Man  of 
Nazareth,  his  life  and  work,  with  the  inno- 
^cent  eye  of  a  bystander.  Had  I  all  the  learn- 
ing of  the  ancients  and  moderns,  I  fear  I 
j  should  never  have  the  temerity  to  be  a 
I  preacher,  —  to  offer  to  others  as  sure  and  in- 

264 


dubitable  fact  what  is  in  its  essence  so  chang- 
ing and  volatile  and  dependent  upon  personal 
sentiment.  For  my  part,  I  would  rather  have 
the  simplest  moral  reflection  from  an  old 
woodsman  or  a  young  scholar,  whose  life  was 
clean  and  whose  mind  was  free,  than  all  the 
gravest  homilies  of  bishops,  hedged  by  tradi- 
tion and  restricted  by  instituted  authority. 
Is  the  breath  of  God  less  free  than  the  sweet 
wind  of  heaven?  or  is  it  less  likely  to  form 
itself  into  an  unmistakable  message  to  you  or 
me  than  it  was  to  call  to  the  saints  of  old? 
The  great  ones  of  all  time,  whose  august 
names  inspire  us  still,  whose  philosophy  forms 
the  basis  of  our  common  wisdom  about  life, 
were  born  to  no  greater  possibility  of  inspira- 
tion than  those  children  dancing  in  the  street 
below.  Whatever  our  fund  of  inspired  reve- 
lation, we  are  awaiting  .other  revelations 
fresher  still.  The  story  of  the  world  is  not 
finished.  There  are  other  years  to  come,  other 
centuries,  other  peoples,  and  civilizations  un- 
imagined.     Will  they,  think  you,  lack  their 

265 


.  /poets  and  philosophers  and  prophets?  The 
i  last  word  of  inspiration  has  not  been  uttered, 
I  nor  will  it  be,  until  the  last  man's  lips  are 
VstilL 

It  was  the  habit  of  our  Puritan  progenitors 
to  discountenance  the  merrymaking  of  old 
England,  and  only  to  lay  stress  on  the  purely 
spiritual  side  of  life.  Old  customs  savoured 
to  them  of  ungodliness,  and  they  must  have 
only  the  soberest  truth  at  all  times.  Our  more 
liberal  tenor  of  mind  allows  us  to  revert  to 
many  of  the  old  usages  which  were  discarded 
by  those  stern  New  Englanders,  and  we  in- 
cline to  make  merry  with  as  hearty  a  good- 
will as  our  forefathers  used  before  Puritan- 
ism was  heard  of.  Without  at  all  discrediting 
the  austere  creed,  we  may  be  glad  that  its 
extreme  rigour  has  been  mitigated  with  much 
of  the  old  spirit  of  joviality.  For  joy  and 
light-hearted  mirth  are  not  heathenish,  but 
truly  of  the  essence  of  the  religion  of  love, 
which  we  profess.  It  is  only  logical,  too, 
that  the  generous  promptings  of  the  heart 

266 


should  find  vent  and  freedom  and  play,  that 
kindly  thoughts  should  express  themselves  in 
kind  deeds.  Moreover,  the  good  deed  induces 
better  thoughts,  and  through  the  custom  of 
charity  we  are  insensibly  led  to  charitable 
tenderness  of  heart. 

We  may  be  glad,  then,  of  the  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  Christmas,  and  never  fear 
they  will  impair  its  inward  and  spiritual 
grace.  I  like  to  have  in  mind  all  the  old 
pagan  piety  attaching  to  this  Festival  of  The 
Shortest  Day,  as  well  as  the  better  and  braver 
sentiments  which  Christianity  gave  to  it. 
Surely  there  is  no  need  to  cast  aside  any  pleas- 
ant and  innocent  scrap  of  ancient  faith  as 
vicious,  simply  because  we  need  it  no  more. 
Superstition  is  only  faith  out  of  date;  and  is 
only  bad  because  it  is  antiquated,  and  because, 
if  we  hold  it,  it  interferes  with  knowledge. 
A  little  harmless  superstition  (so  long  as  we 
do  not  actually  believe  in  it)  often  lends 
charm  to  our  faith,  as  a  smile  may  soften  a 
strong  face;  and  many  quaint  observances 
^  267 


may  be  kept  alive  to  add  grace  to  our  too 
monotonous  life.  When  it  comes  to  the  veri- 
table spirit  of  the  Christmas  season,  what  are 
we  to  say?  We  may  leave  all  the  theological 
pronunciamentos,  which  the  churches  have 
repeated  so  often,  to  be  repeated  once  again 
from  desk  and  pulpit,  and  yet  have  our  own 
V  thoughts  on  Christmas  quite  beyond  the  pale 
of  authority.  No  amount  of  fine  logic  nor 
thunderous  oratory  can  shake  my  quiet  soul 
from  its  own  convictions.  Very  likely  you 
and  I,  my  friend,  shall  have  to  find  ourselves 
in  the  position  of  onlookers  in  the  church  on 
'  Christmas  Day,  if  indeed  we  cross  the  thresh- 
i  old.  But  for  all  that,  we  need  not  count  our- 
i  selves  unbelievers.  It  behooves  us  to  stand 
for  our  right  to  be  numbered  among  the  faith- 
ful, though  we  subscribe  to  no  single  tenet 
of  orthodoxy.  Truth  and  goodness  are  not 
natural  monopolies,  but  are  free  as  light  and 
air.  They  form  the  wholesome  atmosphere 
of  an  intellectual  and  moral  being.  Shall  I 
pay  toll  for  a  breath  of  the  sweet  wind  of 

268 


heaven,  or  enjoy  the  sunlight  only  at  another 
man's   pleasure?     No   more   will   I    receive 
without  question  any  man's  idea  of  the  truth 
or  beauty  or  goodness,  though  I  will  hear  all 
gladly.    The  truth  that  comes  to  me  over  the  r 
pulpit  rail  must  be  perverted  indeed,  if  it 
cannot  stand  this  test,  if  it  dare  not  take  its 
chances  with  my  reason.    This  is  the  attitude 
of  our  modern  world  toward  religion.     The 
mistake  we  make  is  in  thinking  it  a  dangerous     ^ 
attitude.     Surely  the  soul  of  man  is  the  only  ^"^^ 
tabernacle  of  the  veritable  God.     The  sense  ^irC 

of  living  humanity  as  to  what  is  true,  what  / 

is  good,  what  is  beautiful  to  see,  is  the  only 
sanction  for  belief.  You  and  I,  standing  out- 
side the  reach  of  an  obsolete  authority,  believe 
and  cherish  the  words  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  not  because  Christ  uttered  them,  but 
because  in  our  inmost  being  we  cannot  help 
assenting  to  their  lofty  truth.  It  is  a  mark 
of  truth  that  it  must  win  our  belief  in  the  ^ 
long  run;  it  is  a  mark  of  goodness  that  it 
must  command  our  love ;  just  as  it  is  a  mark 


of  beauty  that  it  must  arouse  our  admiration. 
/  So  that  the  sublime  teachings  of  Christianity 
I   are  quite  secure,  without  all  the  artificial  sanc- 
Vtions  with  which  men  have  invested  them. 
They  only  need  to  be  separated  from  super- 
stition, to  appeal  to  us  with  all  their  charm 
and  power.    Think  what  a  stir  any  one  of  the 
/four  Gospels  would  make  if  it  could  be  pub- 
\  lished  to-morrow  for  the  first  time.    Would 
we  not  at  once  receive  it  with  eagerness,  and 
set  it  among  our  treasured  books?     "  More 
sublime   than    Emerson,"   we   would    say  — 
"  More   subtle   than   Maeterlinck."     And   I 
I  believe  it  is  only  when  we  approach  the  words 
of  Christ  with  just  such  an  open  mind  and 
expectant  spirit  that  we  perceive  their  beauty 
and  truth  to  the  fullest. 

But  see,  how  in  all  this  overcareful  con- 
sidering of  the  matter  we  miss  the  very  germ 
of  the  gospel,  which  is  the  .sgirit  of  love. 
We  worry  ourselves  over  forms  and  patterns 
of  conduct;  we  strain  our  logic  to  find  out 
the  truth ;  our  sensitive  and  scrupulous  mind 

270 


will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  exact 
science;  we  give  our  days  and  nights  to  lay 
up  knowledge;  we  shed  rivers  of  blood  for 
this  creed  or  that  dogma;  and  all  the  while 
the  greater  truth,  the  spiritual  kernel  of  life, 
lies  by  the  roadside  waiting  to  be  picked  up. 
You  think  love  an  easy  matter,  and  the  Golden 
Rule  the  simplest  of  moral  laws?  Reflect  that 
men,  with  all  their  good  intentions,  have  , 
never  been  able  to  make  love  the  lodestar  of  I 
the  world  for  a  single  day  of  its  history.  It  is  ' 
the  distinction  of  Christ's  teaching  that  he 
offered  us  a  rule  of  conduct  which  still  re- 
mains approachable  but  unrealized,  drawing 
our  fullest  assent  to  its  impracticable  sublim- 
ity. And  why  impractical?  Only  because  of 
our  lack  of  courage.  No  man  dares  square 
his  action  according  to  his  most  generous  im- 
pulse, for  fear  his  neighbour  will  get  the  bet- 
ter of  him.  So  that  our  whole  system  of  civil-j 
ization  is  infected  with  this  sordid  poltroon- 
ery, and  we  continue  in  a  state  of  distrust  and 
social  strife,  divorcing  our  faith  from  our  life.J 

271 


Knowing  in  our  hearts  the  goodliness  of  love, 
J  the  efficacy  of  kindness,  we  still  carry  on  the 

j  concerns  of  life  with  a  cowardly  disregard  to 

^our  ideals  and  aspirations. 

The  more  welcome,  then,  is  this  greatest 
of  all  festivals,  when  we  commemorate  the 
birth  of  the  Master  whose  life  still  stands  as 
the  most  eminent  reproof  to  our  timidity  and 
self-seeking.  Once  a  year,  at  least,  we  are  put 
in  mind  of  the  Better  Way,  the  way  of  the 
glad  heart,  the  open  hand,  the  unsuspicious 
mind.  You  say  that  no  business  could  be 
successfully  conducted  on  Christian  princi- 
ples, under  modern  conditions?  Then  let  us 
do  without  business.  You  say  that  cities  could 
not  thrive,  nor  nations  grow,  nor  individuals 

^prosper  in  an  age  of  strenuous  competition,  if 
ithey  attempted  to  abide  by  the  law  of  love? 

(.Then  let  us  do  without  prosperity. 

The  fact  remains  that  all  our  contrivances 
for  outward  reformation  of  institutions  are 

but  futile  tinkering  with  the  body  of  society, 

^ — '--     II  -  -  I      II 


272 


when  it  is  the  soul  of  man  that  needs  attention. 
A  little  more  honesty,  a  little  more  love,  a  lit- 
tle more  courage,  a  little  more  kindliness  and 
gentleness  and  helpful  generosity  in  the  heart 
of  average  men  and  women,  —  these  are  more 
important  than  the  passage  of  a  thousand  laws 
or  the  instituting  of  any  new  schemes  of  so- 
cial betterment.  Love  is  an  old,  old  remedy 
for  the  unhappy  plight  of  the  world.  The 
curious  thing  is  that,  while  we  all  profess  to 
believe  in  its  efficacy,  we  cannot  summon  up 
enough  resolution  to  put  it  to  the  test.  It  has 
never  been  thoroughly  tried  yet;  for  most  of 
our  attempts,  though  some  of  them  have  been 
brave  enough,  have  been  but  half-hearted. 

Suppose  we  try  to  carry  a  little  of  the 
Christmas  elation  over  into  the  New  Year. 
Suppose  we  try  to  make  the  new  year  a 
little  less  heathenish,  a  little  less  full  of  cru- 
elty and  noise  and  terror  and  greed,  a  little 
less  absurdly  at  variance  with  all  our  profes- 
sions of  religion  than  most  of  these  nineteen 


273 


hundred  years  have  been  I  The  Golden  Age 
is  never  far  away,  but  is  only  waiting  until 
we  adopt  the  Golden  Law,  to  return  with 
gladness  among  men. 


274 


Saint  Valentine 


It  is  cold  in  the  North  in  February.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  the 
snow  comes  from  a  gray  and  silent  heaven 
about  the  latter  part  of  November,  and  after 
that  v^e  do  not  see  the  earth  again  until  April. 
There  are  days  of  brilliant  sun,  and  nights 
of  marvellous  moonlight,  of  dazzling  white 
and  muffled  evergreen,  but,  although  the  grip 
of  frost  may  be  relaxed  for  a  few  days,  his 
hold  upon  the  land  is  not  altogether  loosened 
until  the  migrating  birds  come  back  and  the 
year  is  past  the  equinox.  In  all  these  five 
months  of  snow  you  will  never  once  set  foot 
on  the  bare  ground. 

And  yet  these  winter  days  are  not  all  alike. 
The  progress  of  the  gray  season  has  been 

275 


gradual;  the  oncoming  season  of  leaves  is 
gradual,  too.  It  is  a  period  of  ebb  in  the 
tide  of  time,  but  there  is  a  certain  point,  a 
certain  date,  in  that  period,  when  the  outgoing 
currents  of  warmth  and  light  and  summer 
cease  to  diminish,  and  begin  slowly  to  return. 
All  through  December  and  January  the  som- 
bre world  seems  to  have  forgotten  the  wonder 
of  June  and  the  bravery  of  October,  and  to 
have  settled  sullenly  down  to  endurance. 
Then  on  a  certain  day  the  ebbing  tide  seems 
to  halt  and  turn.  The  aspect  of  earth  and  sky 
is  different,  brighter,  larger,  bluer.  And  we 
say  in  our  hearts,  "  There  is  hope  once  more, 
and  by  and  by  it  will  be  spring!"  This 
day,  I  have  noticed,  this  birthday  of  the  nat- 
ural year,  falls  about  the  eighth  or  tenth  of 
February. 

An  old  custom  has  pitched  upon  the  feast 
of  St.  Valentine  as  the  festival  of  first  love, 
and  made  him,  willing  or  unwilling,  the  pa- 
tron saint  of  youthful  ardours.  Popular  sup- 
position, which  knows  little  of  the  true  ori- 

276 


Saint  TaUntine 

gins  of  our  immemorial  habits  and  traditional 
observances,  says  that  Valentine's  day  was 
chosen  because  it  happened  to  fall  about  the 
time  of  the  mating  of  birds,  and  was  there- 
fore an  appropriate  date  for  celebrating  the 
first  choice  of  the  human  lover,  —  the  awak- 
ening of  innocence  at  the  touch  of  desire. 
The  truth  is,  we  know  very  little  of  these 
racial  usages  which  have  been  passed  on  to 
us  from  remote  antiquity;  we  can  only  guess 
that  they  must  have  had  their  beginnings  as 
sacred  rites,  commemorating  this  or  that  es- 
sential need  or  joy  of  the  mysterious  heart  of 
man.  In  no  other  way  could  they  have  at- 
tained so  unbreakable  a  hold  upon  us,  surviv- 
ing as  living  traditions  even  in  our  own 
incredulous  age.  They  are  often  not  sanc- 
tioned by  the  simpler  and  more  austerely 
spiritual  religion  which  Christianity  incul- 
cates, and  have  nothing  to  do  with  its  gracious 
ministrations.  They  are  merely  survivals 
from  old  pagan  forms  of  worship,  beautiful 
and   significant,   but   long   since   fallen   into 

277 


desuetude,  and  ineffectual  for  our  modern 
wants.  They  have  no  actual  sway  over  the 
mind,  and  yet  we  allow  them  to  live  on  among 
our  children  with  an  easy  tolerance,  as  if  the 
race  remembered  its  own  childhood  and 
smiled  at  the  memory. 

Of  the  good  Valentine,  whose  patronage 
we  make  so  light  of  in  our  pleasantries,  not 
much  is  known,  and  nothing  at  all  that  would 
justify  his  choice  as  the  especial  guardian  of 
adolescence  and  successor  of  Cupid.  The 
sainted  man  was  a  priest  and  bishop  of  Rome 
during  the  Claudian  persecutions  in  the  third 
century.  In  those  strenuous  times  they  made 
short  work  of  any  who  demurred  at  author- 
ity or  ventured  down  the  alluring  alleys  of 
novelty  in  religion.  Valentine,  like  so  many 
others  of  a  nameless  and  unnumbered  multi- 
tude, was  thrown  into  prison  for  the  faith  that 
possessed  him;  and  like  them  he  gave  up  the 
breath  of  life  most  cheerfully  in  exchange  for 
his  stubborn  predilections,  yielding  his  body 
to  be  martyred  with  clubs.    The  only  other 

278 


squint  Taltntint 

tradition  of  him  declares  that,  while  in  jail, 
he  cured  his  keeper's  daughter  of  blindness. 
In  this  scanty  record  of  a  devoted  follower 
of  the  new  faith  there  is  no  hint  of  worldli- 
ness  or  loverlike  infatuation.  Easily  as  one 
might  build  a  romance  about  the  incident  of 
his  jailor's  daughter,  there  would  be  no 
foundation  for  the  story.  To  make  of  her 
another  Heloise,  and  of  him  a  second  (or 
rather  a  first)  Abelard,  m;ight  be  a  pretty 
pastime  for  an  idle  fancy,  but  it  would  be  a 
fabrication  without  the  tissue  of  truth.  We 
must  look  elsewhere  for  a  reason  for  St. 
Valentine's  election  to  the  patronage  of  love, 
and  we  shall  find  it  in  the  most  unexpected 
place.  There  is  no  glamour  about  it,  so  far 
as  Valentine  is  concerned,  poor  fellow.  I 
almost  feel  sorry  that  he  must  be  robbed  of 
any  umbrage  of  romance,  and  I  can  imagine 
that  he  himself  in  the  realms  of  innocence 
may  have  learned  to  look  with  tolerant  regard 
on  his  own  unearned  repute,  now  so  many 
centuries  old,  as  the  saint  of  lovers. 

279 


To  be  the  protector  of  sweethearts  must 
surely  add  a  sweetness  to  life  even  in  the  heav- 
enly dominions  of  bliss,  and  when  one  has 
long  since  been  divorced  from  all  enchanting 
earthly  inclinations.  Whether  there  be  any 
traces  of  our  mortal  desires,  so  pure  in  their 
origin,  so  blameless  in  their  passionate  aspira- 
tion, still  lingering  about  our  beings  in  that 
future  state,  I  do  not  know.  But  unless  all 
human  companionships  are  done  away,  all 
resemblance  to  our  human  happinesss  super- 
seded by  some  unguessed  and  unimaginable 
kind  of  beatitude,  there  must  surely  lurk  in 
the  heart  of  Valentine,  bishop  and  martyr, 
sentiments  of  generosity,  of  pity,  of  kindliness, 
for  all  the  hopes  and  agonies  of  mortal  lovers. 
All  the  pretty  observances  done  in  his  name 
must  come  to  his  blessed  cognizance  much  as 
premonitions  and  feelings  (as  we  call  them) 
come  to  ourselves,  here  in  the  meshes  of  our 
gross'  incarnation,  only  more  potently  and 
vividly  than  here.  If  it  moves  our  human 
hearts  to  think  upon  the  joys  and  trials  of 

280 


squint  T^ltniint 

lovers  in  their  first  infatuation,  how  much 
more  must  it  move  the  sympathy  of  one  who 
is  now  all  sympathy,  —  the  solicitude  of  one 
whose  kindly  impulses  are  no  longer  par- 
celled and  distracted  and  obscured  by  the 
clamourings  of  a  bodily  existence!  If  prayers 
be  efficacious  and  the  departed  are  permitted 
to  be  at  all  aware  of  the  progress  of  earthly 
affairs,  then  I  doubt  not  the  good  Valentine 
has  cheerfully  accepted  the  duty  laid  upon 
him  by  our  implicit  trust.  So  unflinching  a 
martyr  to  the  ideal  could  never  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  disregard  our  confidence  in  his 
power.  He  would  feel,  I  am  sure,  almost  as 
truly  bound  to  respond  to  the  caprice  of  for- 
tune which  has  made  him  the  vicar  of  love, 
as  he  did  to  assent  to  the  destiny  which  made 
him  vicar  of  Rome.  I  would  as  soon  think 
of  distrusting  him  as  I  would  St.  Anthony 
of  Padua,  who  guards  our  journeys  and  re- 
covers what  is  lost.  But  how  came  Valentine 
into  his  unsought  spiritual  dominion? 

In  early  times,  before  the  coming  of  the 
281 


2rf|e  :ffvitnrfn1^ip  of  Mvt 

Christians,  the  Romans  were  accustomed  to 
hold  their  midwinter  Lupercalia,  or  celebra- 
tion, in  honour  of  Pan.  Among  other  cere- 
monies observed  at  this  festival  was  a  certain 
rite  wherein  the  names  of  young  women  were 
drawn  by  lot  by  the  young  men.  To  the 
overseers  of  the  early  Christian  Church  fell 
the  task  of  attempting  to  eradicate  the  tena- 
cious doctrines  and  customs  of  heathendom. 
Often  they  were  wise  enough  to  resort  to  grad- 
ual methods  of  reform,  and  in  the  case  of  the 
Lupercalia  they  managed  to  substitute  the 
names  of  saints  for  those  of  women.  Each 
participant  in  the  lottery  would  thus  find  him- 
self under  the  protection  of  a  certain  saint, 
as  his  lot  happened  to  be  drawn.  The  older 
usage,  however,  was  the  more  interesting,  and 
we  cannot  believe  that  the  saints  held  prece- 
dence over  the  ladies  for  very  long.  Old  cus- 
toms are  not  easily  discredited,  and  human 
nature  is  not  to  be  etherealized  offhand  by 
any  theology.  Many  centuries  later  the  old 
superstition  was   still   alive,   surviving   from 

282 


Saint  Taltniim 

the  ceremonies  of  the  Lupercalia,  and  St. 
Francis  de  Sales  tried  to  inhibit  the  use  of 
valentines. 

Still  the  benighted  custom  would  not  be 
downed,  and  English  literature  for  centuries 
is  full  of  rhymes  and  verses  for  St.  Valen- 
tine's Day.  Drayton,  the  Elizabethan,  for 
example,  writes: 

"  Muse,  bid  the  morn  awake, 
Sad  winter  now  declines. 
Each   bird   doth   choose  a  mate, 
The  day's  Saint  Valentine's. 

"  For  that  good  bishop's  sake 
Get  up,  and  let  us  see 
What  beauty  it  shall  be 
That  fortune  us  assigns." 

As  if  chance  had  not  already  too  large  a 
share  in  our  precarious  destiny,  we  must  in- 
voke its  gratuitous  interference!  Would  you 
not  suppose  that  men  would  be  too  discour- 
aged at  the  grand  lottery  of  life  to  invent  any 
game  still  more  haphazardous  or  entrust  their 

283 


destinies  to  the  turn  of  a  ballot?  Surely  it  is 
perilous  enough  to  make  choice  in  love  when 
caution  and  judgment  are  enlisted  in  the 
cause!  Must  we  imperil  our  happiness  and 
stake  our  future  on  a  chance  meeting  of  a 
certain  frosty  morning  in  February?  "  Nay," 
says  the  wisdom  of  the  ages,  "  ye  are  already 
in  the  hands  of  fate.  Your  most  carefully 
considered  choice  is  already  enmeshed  by  un- 
seen conditions,  and  your  freedom  only  runs 
the  length  of  the  leash  of  destiny."  So  it  is. 
We  grow  infatuated  with  danger  and  court 
peril  with  a  cheerful  daring,  as  venturesome 
boys  grow  familiar  with  firecrackers  on  the 
Fourth  of  July,  or  skim  over  the  thin  ice  with 
a  breathless  speed,  flouting  courage  in  the  face 
of  catastrophe. 

What  the  exact  rites  of  the  Lupercalia  were 
is  a  matter  of  guesswork  for  the  most  part, 
and  Pan,  they  say,  is  dead.  The  power  of 
Valentine,  too,  is  passing  away  with  other  old 
customs  and  credences.  The  new  faith  oblit- 
erated the  old  feasts  from  the  calendar  by 

284 


S^aini  TaUntine 

overwriting  them  with  novel  names.  Our  en- 
lightenment and  rationalism  are  like  to  erase 
them  altogether.  Neither  Pan  nor  Valentine 
can  survive  the  spread  of  the  scientific  spirit; 
but,  having  returned  all  things  to  reason,  may 
we  not  find  the  world  a  very  gray,  monot- 
onous place  of  few  joys  and  fewer  hopes? 
Life  is  not  wholly  reasonable,  after  all,  and 
it  must  surely  be  the  greatest  folly  to  fancy 
we  can  make  it  so.  It  is  to  be  enjoyed  as  well 
as  to  be  studied  and  understood,  —  to  be  taken 
with  a  thankful  heart  and  not  always  probed 
for  a  meaning.  Therefore,  if  there  is  an  un- 
regenerate  strain  in  you  that  insists  on  still 
believing  in  old  Lupercus  of  the  wild  woods, 
may  you  have  the  reward  of  your  belief! 
And  if  you  are  pleased  to  render  observance 
to  times  and  seasons,  and  count  St.  Valen- 
tine a  personage,  who  shall  prove  you  mis- 
taken ? 

We  ourselves  are  less  ceremonious,  less 
given  to  manners  and  trivial  elegances,  even 
less  polite  than  our  sires.     The  forfeits  and 

285 


gifts  which  Valentine's  day  used  to  impose 
are  no  longer  in  vogue ;  yet  we  cannot  quite 
escape  the  sentiment  of  the  feast.  As  in  so 
many  instances,  we  may  impart  new  interpre- 
tations to  old  forms.  Is  not  life  itself  as  we 
have  to  live  it  merely  the  art  of  expressing 
ourselves  in  fresh  ways  in  the  old  customs 
already  at  hand?  All  our  daily  avocations 
may  be  as  trite  as  the  alphabet  itself;  it  is 
always  possible  to  rearrange  them  in  new  and 
alluring  and  articulate  combinations. 

The  day  of  St.  Valentine  may  well  stand, 
even  for  us  common,  sensible  folk,  for  the 
festival  of  friends  and  lovers.  On  this  morn- 
ing when  first  the  reviving  sun  comes  back 
to  gray  streets  and  snowy  fields,  we  may  well 
encourage  tender  thoughts,  —  resolve  and 
hope  and  aspire.  The  touch  of  the  warm  sun- 
light on  our  shoulder  may  well  seem  like  a 
hint  to  bestir  ourselves  about  the  greatest 
business  of  the  universe,  the  old,  engrossing, 
imperishable,  never-ended  affair  of  love.  It 
will  remind  us  of  the  perennial  goodness  of 

286 


^aint  TKltntint 

living,  the  unaging  wholesomeness  of  earth, 
the  fond  yet  delightful  infatuations  of  the 
world,  and  all  the  entrancing  possibilities 
which  lie  hidden  in  the  path  of  adventure. 
Tainted  with  the  madness  of  the  lover,  we 
may  even  embrace  that  supremest  of  human 
follies,  the  delusion  that  heights  of  excellence, 
of  unselfishness,  of  kindness,  and  devotion 
have  never  yet  been  exemplified  as  we  shall 
practise  them.  Is  not  that  a  generous  aspira- 
tion worth  experiencing,  even  though  we 
should  not  realize  a  tenth  of  it?  Will  you  not 
join  the  light  but  not  frivolous  band  of  St. 
Valentine's  followers,  bethink  you  of  your 
youth  to-day  with  all  its  radiant  expectations, 
and  resolve  to  make  some  one  more  happy 
by  your  love?  It  may  be  a  sweetheart  or  a 
child  or  an  old  lady;  love  is  good  for  every- 
body; and  it  is  good  for  us  to  love,  for  in 
loving  we  are  only  giving  free  play  to  the 
soul  in  its  natural  occupation.  Make  your 
vows  on  St.  Valentine's  morn,  gentlemen 
and  friends!     I  promise  you  great  joy  from 

287 


their  fulfilment.  You  may  not  be  able  to 
keep  them  with  all  the  nobility  of  intention 
in  which  they  are  made,  but  in  the  effort  there 
will  be  exaltation  and  sober  gain.  For  one 
day  more  the  youthful  poet  within  you  may 
walk  the  earth  in  gay  supremacy,  to  better 
this  life  for  the  beloved  with  a  gift  of  verses 
or  violets  and  renewals  of  gentle  friendship. 
See  to  it  that  some  fresh  joy  takes  up  its  lodg- 
ing in  the  heart  of  the  little  friend,  and  sor- 
row and  weariness  and  disappointment  be 
turned  from  her  door.  Take  care  that  laugh- 
ter comes  back  to  her  lips  and  the  flush  of 
delight  to  her  cheeks,  for  perhaps  you  have 
been  a  neglectful  Valentine,  and  your  vows 
sadly  need  to  be  renewed.  Be  not  ashamed, 
therefore,  of  the  fanatical  enthusiasms  of  love, 
and  make  your  penance  for  sins  of  negligence, 
of  thoughtlessness,  of  unkindness,  preparatory 
to  the  golden  hours  of  spring. 

For  on  St.  Valentine's  morning,  if  you 
will  take  my  word  for  it,  our  venerable 
Mother  Nature  goes  to  her  closet  and  takes 

288 


^aint  Taltniim 

down  her  green  cloak,  which  before  many 
weeks  she  will  resume  for  the  festivals  of 
April.  Had  we  not  better  look  over  our  own 
wardrobe  of  the  heart,  also?  The  dust  of 
familiarity  and  the  moth  of  doubt  play  sad 
havoc  with  the  soul's  garment  of  love.  And 
when  the  appointed  day  arrives,  and  the  feast 
of  Spring-time  is  instituted  once  more,  — 
when  the  sap  comes  back  to  the  hills,  and 
the  madness  of  love  to  the  heart  of  man,  — 
we  must  not  be  found  unprepared.  Every 
heart  must  have  in  readiness  its  scarlet  tunic 
and  its  golden  coat,  for  how  more  appropri- 
ately can  it  be  clothed  than  with  love  and 
joy? 


289 


Perhaps  one  of  the  maddest  things  in  a 
mad  world  is  to  inquire  the  cause  of  madness, 
just  as  it  seems  to  be  one  of  the  requisites  of 
happiness  that  we  should  not  set  our  heart 
upon  it.  The  Angel  of  Life  is  evasive,  reti- 
cent, not  to  be  cornered,  yet  abounding  in 
generous  revelations  of  the  truth  upon  occa- 
sion; and  that  mortal  is  likely  to  learn  most 
about  the  mysteries  of  being  who  does  not 
pry  into  them  too  industriously.  Curiosity  is 
the  fundamental  passion  of  the  mind,  and  to 
satisfy  curiosity  with  knowledge  is  one  of  the 
three  great  sources  of  happiness.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  forbidden  to  know  everything.  At 
least  this  is  so  for  the  time  being,  whatever 

290 


may  be  permitted  to  human  investigation  in 
some  future  age. 

And  so,  whether  it  is  hatters  or  March 
hares,  we  know  very  little  about  the  madness 
of  either.  Each  has  become  a  byword  in  pro- 
verbial speech,  and  we  make  a  simile  of  his 
erratic  fortune  without  a  second  thought. 
How  sad  to  be  a  name  and  nothing  more  in 
the  mouth  of  one's  fellows!  Yet  I  have  no 
doubt  the  hatter  is  as  indifferent  to  his  repute 
as  the  hare,  even  perhaps  a  little  proud  of 
his  peculiarity.  So  frail  is  moral  nature,  it 
is  boastful  even  of  its  blemishes  when  they 
lend  it  a  little  distinction  and  draw  the  eye 
of  the  crowd.  One  can  very  well  fancy  the 
complacency  of  the  hatter  under  his  visita- 
tion, how  he  would  turn  it  to  good  account 
and  make  a  profitable  investment  of  his  afflic- 
tion. He  would  be  a  sorry  tradesman  who 
could  not  manage  to  secure  some  slight  advan- 
tage in  dealing  with  destiny  and  come  out  at 
last  on  the  right  side  of  his  reckoning  with 
Providence.    Was  ever  the  madness  of  a  hat- 

291 


^Tfte  iFtirntrsfiiii  of  ^vt 

ter  so  complete  his  commercial  instinct  could 
not  prevail  against  it?  Is  there  not  always 
a  residuum  of  sanity  at  the  bottom  of  his 
mania,  a  trace  of  shrewd  calculation  con- 
cealed under  the  guise  of  his  feckless  inno- 
cence? The  madness  of  the  hatter  is  the 
wisdom  of  the  serpent,  seemingly  guileless 
yet  profoundly  subtle  and  sardonic. 

Now  the  March  hare  is  in  a  very  different 
case.  His  folly  is  the  folly  of  a  child,  his 
madness  the  madness  of  ecstasy,  of  elation,  of 
transport.  He  is  a  visionary  and  partakes  of 
the  rapture  of  lovers  and  prophets  and  bards. 
He  is  possessed  and  carried  out  of  himself. 
He  is  akin  to  the  oracular  priestess  of  Delphi 
and  the  Vestals,  whose  care  it  was  to  cherish 
the  sacred  flame  of  their  goddess.  He  may 
be  the  least  of  all  the  creatures  who  sufifer 
this  form  of  madness,  but  his  tenure  of  the 
divine  possession  is  none  the  less  authentic. 
The  burden  of  joy  laid  upon  his  spirit  is  ex- 
cessive, and  an  unhinging  of  his  balance  has 
supervened.    He  is  mad  because  he  loves  too 

292 


greatly,  whereas  the  hatter  is  mad  because  he 
knows  too  much.  Saul  and  Hamlet  were  mad 
as  hatters,  through  an  excess  of  knowledge 
vouchsafed  to  them.  Blake  and  Shelley  and 
many  another  mystic  were  mad  as  March 
hares,  by  reason  of  the  too  great  stress  of  in- 
spiration laid  upon  them.  In  the  one  case 
the  dementia  is  a  malady  of  the  mind,  in  the 
other  it  is  an  afifection  of  the  spirit;  though, 
tried  by  the  standard  of  sober  sense,  they  are 
all  mad  together. 

With  something  of  the  March  hare's  own 
folly,  I  spent  a  day  in  a  library  trying  to  find 
out  the  meaning  of  his  madness,  its  cause  and 
scope,  or  how  it  came  into  our  proverbial 
lore.  Of  course,  the  search  was  futile,  and 
I  only  found  out  several  things  I  was  not  look- 
ing for.  One  quotation,  however,  seemed 
pleasant  enough  to  remember.  Drayton  in 
his  "  Nymphidia  "  says  that  Oberon 

"  Grew  mad  as  any  hare, 
When  he  had  sought  each  place  with  care) 
And  found  the  queen  was  missing." 

293 


I  daresay  that  is  the  gist  of  the  matter,  for 
the  best  of  the  cyclopaedists  took  refuge  in  the 
bare  statement  that  hares  are  particularly  wild 
during  the  mating  season  in  March.  So  the 
madness  of  our  little  brother  with  the  long 
ears  is  only  the  erratic  behaviour  of  a  lover, 
after  all,  and  we  must  sympathize  with  him 
in  his  happy  derangement.  Who  will  say 
there  is  any  joy  in  the  world  comparable  to 
that  irresponsible  state  of  election,  when  the 
kind  gods  have  rnarked  us  for  their  own,  and 
bestowed  on  us  the  favour  of  their  rapturous 
life  for  one  spring  day?  Is  it  any  wonder 
the  hare  should  be  full  of  quirks  and  starts, 
of  aimless  chasing  to  and  fro,  of  dashing  here 
and  halting  there  without  rhyme  or  reason? 
Could  one  expect  so  frail  and  sensitive  a  being 
to  support  so  great  a  burden  of  ecstasy  and 
still  be  undistracted,  poised,  and  sane?  Is 
it  not  rather  a  marvel  he  has  a  spark  of  rea- 
son left?  Most  men  and  women  have  been 
lovers,  too,  in  their  day,  and  unless  memory 
can  be  wholly  blighted  by  time,  should  know 

294 


how  to  feel  for  their  little  friend  in  his  March 
wildness : 

"  For   that   is   the  madness   of   Ishtar, 
Which  comes  upon  earth  in  spring." 

It  is  easy  to  identify  Easter,  the  ancient 
goddess  of  the  spring  wind  and  the  southwest 
rain,  with  Ishtar  or  Astarte,  the  deity  of  love 
who  was  worshipped  with  dark  rites  in  Asia, 
passed  into  the  purer  religion  of  Hellas  as 
Aphrodite,  and  survives  as  April,  the  mother 
of  the  new-ploughed  field  and  swelling  seed. 
The  soft  wind  from  the  south  is  her  immortal 
breath;  her  garment  is  the  mist  of  purple 
rain;  the  opening  windflower  and  blood-root 
and  hepatica  betray  where  her  foot  has 
passed ;  she  touches  the  wild  cherry  with  her 
hand  as  she  journeys,  and  the  woodlands  are 
filled  with  the  fragrance  of  its  breaking 
bloom.  In  the  bitter  North,  when  the  rivers 
are  loosened  from  their  long  imprisonment 
and  go  sparkling  to  the  sea,  when  the  streams 
of  melting  snow  babble  to  the  stars  in 

"  The  hopeful,  solemn,  many-murmured  night," 

295 


that,  too,  is  the  work  of  the  great  spring  god- 
dess, while  in  the  hearts  of  all  mortal  crea- 
tures she  works  a  no  less  miraculous  resur- 
gence. It  is  she  who  brings  back  the  purple 
swallow  at  the  appointed  day,  and  whispers 
the  time  of  year  to  the  flame-bright  crocus  un- 
der the  mold.  It  is  she  also  who  puts  mad 
fancies  into  the  heads  of  imperial  lovers  and 
wild  March  hares.  For  before  her  not 
only  is  no  distinction  of  persons,  but  the 
"  flower  in  the  crannied  wall,"  the  hunter  on 
the  trail,  the  small  green  frog  in  the  marsh, 
and  the  proud  prince  in  his  palace  are  equal 
in  her  eyes.  It  is  she  also  who  presides  over 
the  unmitigated  ardours  of  earth,  and  delights 
in  the  splendid  longings,  the  impassioned  de- 
sires, the  impossible  romantic  aspirations  of 
human  hearts.  It  was  her  madness  which! 
came  upon  Leander  and  sent  him  to  swim  the 
Hellespont  to  his  death,  for  the  sake  of  a  girl's 
kiss. 

For  no  weightier  reason,  how  many  a  man 
has  gone  to  his  doom  in  the  glad,  fragrant 

296 


hours  of  some  lengthened  twilight  of  spring, 
with  the  green  pipes  of  the  frogs  sounding  in 
the  meadows,  and  the  still,  small  magic  flute 
of  desire  answering  in  his  breast  I  Over  the 
hills  or  beyond  the  sea  dwelt  the  remembered 
shape  of  beauty,  beckoned  the  vision  of  allur- 
ing loveliness,  echoed  the  silver  sound  of  irre- 
sistible laughter,  and  he  could  do  nothing  but 
follow  the  old  irremediable  path  of  destiny 
and  joy.  Let  prudence  lay  up  saws  and  ex- 
perience inculcate  caution  as  they  will;  it  is 
not  in  the  nature  of  love  to  count  the  cost. 
Youth  knows  a  better  wisdom  in  the  infatu- 
ated gladness  of  the  lover,  and  those  whom  the 
gods  love  die  without  ever  being  disillusioned. 
Crazy  in  the  sight  of  the  world,  they  go  to 
their  graves  with  no  care  upon  their  brow, 
unreluctant  to  the  last.  Of  a  metal  too  fine  to 
be  tarnished  by  the  corrosive  air  of  life,  they 
pass  in  charmed  immunity  through  the  scurvy 
environments  of  struggle  and  selfishness  and 
greed,  childlike,  instinctive,  single-hearted, 
guided  for  ever  by  the  divine  insanity. 

297 


ITfie  :ffvimXfni)ip  of  ^tt 

It  is  not  only  in  the  tender  pursuits  of 
youth  that  the  inescapable  March  madness 
reveals  itself.  It  is  made  patent  in  all  the  un- 
dertakings of  men.  Wherever  there  is  a  touch 
of  the  visionary  and  the  extreme  there  are 
its  symptoms  appearing.  We  may  be  sober, 
diligent,  God-fearing,  impeccable,  stanch  as 
churchwardens,  and  dependable  as  a  stone 
wall,  yet  make  no  more  than  a  decent  demise 
after  all.  For  all  our  sedulous  anxiety  to  keep 
the  Commandments,  we  may  go  down  to  the 
pit  with  none  to  grieve  above  us.  The  local 
paper  may  give  us  a  stickful  of  perfunctory 
eulogy,  our  possessions  will  be  scattered 
among  our  relatives,  and  the  sum  total  of  the 
matter  is  not  much  more  than  a  name  and  two 
dates  on  a  headstone  under  a  sighing  willow. 
Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  the  world.  It  is 
all  very  well  and  very  right  and  very  neces- 
sary, but  alone  it  is  not  enough.  You  will 
find  that  whenever  a  man  is  remembered  and 
beloved  beyond  the  day  of  his  great  departure, 
there  has  been  a  touch  of  the  unusual  and  ex- 

298 


travagant  about  him  in  some  direction.  How- 
ever commonplace  he  may  have  seemed  for 
the  most  part,  it  v^ili  turn  out  that  those  who 
knew  him  best  were  acquainted  with  exag- 
gerated and  unusual  traits  in  his  character, 
vagaries,  and  predilections  out  of  the  ordi- 
nary, generous  promptings  of  self-forgetful 
folly,  which  endeared  him  to  them  more  than 
all  his  unwavering  rectitude.  For  it  is  not 
what  we  expect  of  people  that  makes  us  love 
them,  but  their  unasked,  unrequited,  and  lav- 
ish actions.  The  soul  is  not  happy  in  exacti- 
tude, but  loves  the  overbrimming  measure. 
The  mean  and  calculating  wisdom  of  the 
market-place  is  abhorrent  to  it,  and  the  waste- 
ful, splendid,  unstinted  dealings  of  Nature 
are  the  only  method  it  knows.  Who  ever 
heard  of  keeping  a  tally  in  friendship,  or 
doing  a  kindness  for  the  sake  of  gain?  Surely 
that  were  the  very  embodiment  of  blasphemy 
against  the  spirit  of  love!  Yet  that  is  the 
custom  of  traders  and  politicians  and  money- 
lenders and  all  the  sleek  complacency  that 

299 


2rfie  iFvtentrsf|(|i  of  ^tt 

rules  the  world.  Alas  for  them!  They  de- 
spise the  unsuspecting  gentleness  of  Utopian 
dreamers,  they  have  cast  out  all  childish  and 
impractical  faith  from  their  mind,  and  have 
made  themselves  lords  of  their  fellow  men, 
only  to  lose  the  greatest  of  all  treasures  at  last, 
—  a  radiant  spirit  and  a  contented  heart. 

We  aver  glibly  enough  that  aberration  al- 
ways goes  with  genius,  but  we  make  a  mistake 
when  we  expect  genius  to  exist  without  aber- 
ration. Nature  progresses  steadily  but  un- 
evenly, here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  now  at 
one  point,  now  at  another.  It  is  the  very 
height  of  her  intention  to  produce  a  perfect 
individual,  to  embody  the  beauty  of  the  nor- 
mal in  the  single  instance.  Toward  this  ideal 
she  is  always  tending,  yet  how  seldom  she 
seems  to  attain  it,  even  remotely!  The  impos- 
sible hopes  and  aims  of  the  altruist  make  him 
peculiar,  —  make  him  a  variant  from  the 
average  type  of  man.  Any  great  capacity  in 
one  direction  or  another,  which  we  call  genius 
and  hold  to  be  a  kind  of  inspiration,  makes 

300 


its  possessor  conspicuous.  It  does  not  make 
him  abnormal,  for  that  is  the  one  direction  in 
which  he  is  permitted  to  approach  the  normal 
a  little  more  closely.  If  he  were  allowed  to 
approach  it  in  all  directions,  —  if  he  could 
have  strength  of  body  and  power  of  mind, 
for  instance,  commensurate  with  his  noble 
longings  and  imaginings,  —  the  creature  of 
genius  would  be  human  no  longer,  but  divine. 
And  it  is  not  permitted  any  one  mortal  to 
run  so  far  ahead  in  the  great  procession. 

It  does  not  need  any  philosophy,  however, 
to  appreciate  the  March  hare's  enthusiasm. 
We  all  know  how  the  feeling  of  young  spring 
takes  hold  of  him,  when  the  sappy  buds  begin 
to  swell  and  the  sleeping  rivers  begin  to  mur- 
mur in  their  icy  dungeons.  We,  too,  have 
our  seizures  of  restlessness,  our  longings  to 
wander,  our  admonitions  of  splendid  discon- 
tent, when  the  sun  passes  the  equator  and  the 
hours  of  sunshine  lengthen  toward  the  season 
of  flowers.  For  us  also  routine  becomes  irk- 
some and  common  sense  the  only  delusion. 

301 


E'^t  iFt(entrsi|(|i  of  ^vt 

It  is  the  time  for  rejuvenation  upon  the  earth, 
when  age  looks  on  youth  with  an  envious  eye, 
and  the  soberest  beef-eater  among  us  is  wont 
to  put  by  his  accustomed  habit  of  prudence 
for  the  gayer  garb  of  some  more  reckless  vir- 
tue. It  is  not  enough  to  be  sound  citizens, 
forsooth,  and  scrupulous  upholders  of  things 
as  they  are;  we  must  revert  to  the  days  of 
our  pupilage  and  taste  once  more  the  intox- 
icating savour  of  romance.  Perhaps  we  have 
accumulated  an  enviable  store  of  worldly 
wisdom,  venerable  with  the  dust  of  time,  and 
are  hoarding  it  against  ravages  of  age.  Of 
no  avail  is  our  fatuous  precaution.  The  first 
breath  of  spring  wind  blows  it  all  away,  and 
we  go  merrily  forth  upon  the  great  adven- 
ture as  empty-handed  and  daring  as  when  we 
first  began.  It  may  be  hard  to  learn  instruc- 
tion from  our  elders;  it  is  a  hundred  times 
harder  to  forget  the  counsels  of  our  own 
youth.  The  heart's  great  by-laws  of  intre- 
pidity and  hope  need  neither  to  be  written 
nor  taught;   they  were  promulgated  long  be- 

302 


fore  our  puny  civilizations  were  dreamed  of, 
and  they  will  guide  many  generations  when 
our  hands  have  let  go  of  all  temporal  affairs. 
The  forethought  of  the  ant  may  be  a  suffi- 
cient providence  against  the  perils  of  winter, 
but  we  must  have  a  touch  of  the  March  mad- 
ness of  the  hare  if  we  would  come  happily 
through  the  round  year.  It  is  not  enough  to 
avoid  disaster  and  penury  and  mischance; 
the  stones  of  the  field  accomplish  that  better 
than  we.  We  needs  must  have  "  a  bliss  to 
die  with,  dim  descried,"  if  we  would  save 
ourselves  from  the  consciousness  of  ultimate 
failure.  You  may  very  well  think  to  get  your- 
self through  the  inexorable  portals  of  heaven 
under  the  patronage  of  Socrates  and  Newton 
and  the  Lord  of  Verulam,  of  the  seven  wise 
men  of  Greece  and  the  seventy  wise  men  of 
modern  days.  But,  pray,  were  they  not  all 
mad  together?  Let  me  take  my  modest 
chance  with  the  timorous  March  hare. 

THE  END. 

303 


1S96G 

DATE  DUE 

r*  r"  D 

RBn)ird&t2} 

?.Mi,i: 

1 

FEB  2  2  1 

)77 

7 

nECD 

I^lS  22  IJ' 

I 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  716  279     5 


